


Blood 2035

by Veldritch



Category: Blood+
Genre: Fantasy, Immortals, Monsters, Multi, Next-Gen, POV Original Character, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 14:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2735999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veldritch/pseuds/Veldritch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost thirty years after the events of the TV series, Saya wakes up to a world that knows chiropterans exist and research into them is cutting-edge science. As faces old and new assemble, someone who wants her genetic code enough to commit murder for it. This fic will be written so that seeing the original is not essential.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Measure of a Monster

**Author's Note:**

> "Shipper on Deck" was my exercise in plotting and dialogue; this is my exercise in creating characters. I like the universe of "Blood+" more than the series itself, and the ending sets up for potential future stories quite well, so here I am, playing in its sandbox. For those of you unfamiliar with the series, if you are willing to wait, everything you need to know from the TV series will come up in-story. Essentially it's a globe-hopping story with (sort of) vampires, set in 2035. Take the warnings about violence seriously, please. Also, I am fudging on the science quite a bit. Pretend that this all makes sense in the future.
> 
> Lastly, as always, comments are appreciated.

Chapter 1: The Measure of a Monster

[Late July, 2035]

Bao Chunjia was currently assigned to Red Shield’s rite of passage: monitor duty. Everyone had to do it at some point in their first few months interning and no one looked forward to it. For the last 20 years there hadn’t been so much as a twitch of movement in the cell, not since they put up extra seals when that squirrel got in. Besides, the monitoring system was almost entirely automated. If there were any changes in the subject’s status the computers would pick it up and set the alarms off on its own.

In fact, originally all they’d had were automated systems. And then the squirrel got in, and now there had to be human visual contact to confirm whether the cocoon was, in fact, opening.

As the organization waited, the interns kept passing through, doing their hours and trying to stave off death by boredom. It was especially bad during night shifts like this one. Chunjia was hopped up on caffeine to stay awake and using the lab computer to work on his bacterial mutation predictions, which would be his thesis once he got back to Shanghai.

He was shuffling his way through 3D models of the fractal mutative progressions when the buzzer went off. At first the intern thought he’d fallen asleep and was dreaming, but a solid pinch put that to rest. Then Chunjia thought that the caffeine was scrambling his senses. Back when he was an undergrad he’d pulled three straight all nighters on more cups of coffee than any human’s kidneys should be forced to process. By the end of the ordeal he’d passed his exams and hallucinated his dead grandmother. Still, just to be sure…Saving the models, Chunjia headed over to the sensor panel. It was definitely registering movement, even noise in the chamber. He tapped an icon and zoomed the video monitor to full screen.

In infrared-augmented night vision, he could see the inside of the modified tomb and its silken gray occupant. The cocoon that Q2 had spun around herself 28 years ago rested in the far corner affixed to the wall by a substance that he knew the chemistry division was itching to get their hands on. Everything looked perfectly normal, and for a moment Chunjia was ready to deem this another squirrel incident.

Then the side of the cocoon bulged slightly before contracting again. The entire casing shook slightly, and the walls bulged further.

Q2 was waking up. After nearly three decades, she was actually waking up, and she was doing it on _his_ watch.

Chunjia’s mind reeled for a moment at the enormity of his good luck before responsibility set in and he slid open the protective cover and slammed the button that set the entire Red Shield headquarters into frantic movement.

 

***

 

Can’t breathe.

Move!

Can’t.

Something to touch.

Soft, stretchy.

Won’t break.

Can’t get out.

Can’t breathe.

Try again.

Stretched further that time.

It breaks. The liquid pours out.

I pour out.

Hard beneath.

Deep breath.

Still wet, but not warm now.

Cold. Very, _very_ cold.

Dark. Can’t see.

Try to move.

Legs weak.

Arms weak.

Cry!

Something is… wrong.

Shouldn’t be alone.

What’s missing?

Sound, muffled.

Then light.

Too bright.

Eyes hurt.

A shadow.

Lifted up.

Gently, firmly, warmly.

Warmth here, finally, and rightness.

A sound, thrumming.

A smell.

Mouth waters.

Head held up.

Smell and sound, closer.

Warm, salty, delicious, perfect…

_I know this._

_I know this… it’s blood._

_No, I know… **this**._

_A…a person._

Drinking long, deep, the… _hands_ …hold tight.

Done now, tired but full.

Eye adjusted. Look up.

A face.

And now a name.

 _Hagi_ …

 

***

 

On the stage of the large lecture hall, a tall blond man stood amidst an array of holographic displays.

“So everybody, say hello to the little creatures that you share your body with. Not just you, but every eukaryote on earth. They’ve got separate DNA from us and they live in every cell in your body. I don’t know if you remember in the _Star Wars_ prequels…”

A few boos erupted from the audience, and George chuckled. “Here me out – and I actually _like_ the third one, by the way – ‘midi-chlorians’ are based on the very real phenomenon of universal symbiosis. In fact the name is a compound of the two ones we find here on earth – not so much in galaxies far, far away…”

He got laughs at that one, which was good. George couldn’t always tell when his audience would appreciate his nerdier moments. “Chloroplasts are present in all plants and some alga, producing chlorophyll and hence serving as engines for the plants. Mitochondria, on the other hand, are found in nearly all eukaryotes – plants, animals, fungi, everything. Given how different both chloroplasts and mitochondria are from their host cells, scientists long ago determined that they are the result of an ancient merging of different organisms. Basically, these ancient symbiotic bacteria provided better energy sources for their hosts, and their hosts provided protection for them. And ever since we’ve been living together.

“So when I started looking at what made the Chiropterans capable of massive regeneration, of intense strength, all on a fairly minimal diet, I had a suspicion that the batteries of their cells might be responsible. And sure enough, when I managed to get blood samples, I found…”

He clicked the diorama to its next model, and he could hear a low rumble among the gathered academics, at least among the people who were knowledgeable enough organic chemistry to recognize what they were looking at. But even the many more casual guests, both in the hall and in the massive web audience, had to notice how different Chiropteran mitochondria looked from the diorama he’d just shown them. Their reactions let George relive the first time he’d seen this under a microscope, having spent months wheedling samples out of Red Shield’s medical staff. It explained so much and yet opened up an entirely new universe of questions – and a dissertation that was getting him global recognition.

“Yes. It’s nothing like any mitochondria anywhere else in the world. And in running models, it is more _efficient_ , for lack of a better word. It generates a much higher ratio of energy from consumed food than ordinary mitochondria. In fact, calling it mitochondria probably isn’t even accurate; there are some similarities, but really, this is an entirely new kind of endosymbiont, different from both mitochondria and chloroplasts. And it’s only found with Chiropterans.”

George forwarded the energy models to the academics in the crowd he knew would be interested in seeing the results (though honestly, would it kill them to just order his dissertation?) before moving on before the plebs got bored. “Both drones and workers have this pseudo-mitochondria in spite of being, originally, human. The best theory we have – and I think it’s the right one – is that the blood contact with queens and other pseudo-mitochondrial carriers results in these pseudo-mitochondria essentially hijacking cells, wiping out and replacing human mitochondria. The byproduct of this new energy method releases a kind of toxin into the bloodstream that ordinary human bodies can’t handle, so the body… _adjusts._ This accounts not just the gradual process by which humans transform into chiropterans but also the extreme pain that this transformation has been observed to induce.”

His diorama played a movie during this part, showing the mitochondrial replacement sequence, and the ensuing chemicals that spewed out from the infected cell. He saw a few people in the crowd actually flinch at the thought. George felt relieved by that. He always had a nagging fear that the average listener wouldn’t understand just how horrible a process it was that he was describing. _For the workers at least. The drones, on the other hand…_

“It’s also how we can tell where groups of chiropterans originate; pseudo-mitochondria carries a signature that can be traced back to one of the queens, much like how I could trace your mitochondria back through your matrilineal ancestors. These lineages also produce mutually toxic substances, though that gets complicated when you get to queen-drone reproduction – which will have to wait for another day, sorry. Currently most surviving Chiropterans trace their origins back to Q3, the queen behind the New York attacks in 2007. Q2 left one drone, and a handful of Chiropterans have been uncovered that have her trace, probably a result of her losing control in Vietnam in 1971. Q4 and 5 have no lineages yet and hopefully never will. Containing the spread of this pseudo-mitochondria is a matter of evolutionary survival, not just for else but for all mitochondrial life on earth.”

He paused, gazing out at the twilight of the auditorium and its seated audience, as well as the glowing panels of his distant viewers. George took a deep breath. There was a big elephant in the room here, and he knew he might as well bring it up before someone in the audience did. “So… where did this pseudo-mitochondria come from?”

George let the question hang in the air. After about ten seconds passed a tentative hand raised in the hall. He highlighted her chair, and she said, awkwardly, “Well, I’d read… they might be from…” she shrugged sheepishly, “well, outer space…”

This got the crowd buzzing, with chuckles, whispers, and gasps and George waited for everything to die down before starting again.

“That’s one hypothesis. Dr. Bolser’s been advocating it ever since reading my dissertation, and you can read his papers – I’ll send out the links –” which he did with a wave, “and he makes some good arguments. Basically the extraterrestrial hypothesis argues that there’s no way that symbionts this alien, if you’ll pardon the pun, could evolve among just one species and not be found anywhere else. If these pseudo-mitochondria are as superior in efficiency to standard mitochondria and chloroplasts, then why didn’t they spread?

“Well, one major rebuttal is that in the long term, it’s potentially a doomed pattern. What happens when Chiropterans run out of prey? Chiropterans are basically immortal, barring killing each other, and overpopulation would be a major problem. These pseudo-mitochondria might have developed at some point in the past, spread, and then proved their own demise.”

“But—”

There was an interjection from one of the academics, Dr. Saqqaf of Cairo. George hid his irritation, since this was one of the guests he’d been frankly excited to come see his work. “Yes?”

“That would require a mass-extinction event, followed by the pseudo-mitochondria lying dormant until the 1800s. But what is the chance of something this potent remaining out of the rest of the eukaryote gene pool for that many million years?”

“Slim,” George admitted. “And other observations by Dr. Bolser do make sense in an extraterrestrial context. He hypothesizes that they may have started out similar to our own mitochondria, but actually evolved  in the process of interstellar transport. With minimal resources, hyper-efficient, near-immortal organisms would have a higher chance of survival. And at some point within the history of human development, the carrying meteor or what have you landed here, infected a human female and created Chiropterans.”

“Which then begs the question of why humans?” said the avatar of Dr. Kim Iseul, another academic George was thrilled to see attending his presentation. “And why the production of such humanoid queens, as opposed to the worker Chiropterans?”

“I’m not saying I have all the answers, by any means. Not just those questions, but also why drones seem able to shift from one form to another, are still things I haven’t calculated yet. But the pseudo-mitochondria are the key. And my research data is open to anyone who wants to use it.”

From the expressions on the academics, they were going to take him up on that offer. George couldn’t be more pleased.

The presentation ended, and he did a short meet-and-greet with his distinguished guests, or with their avatars. The crowd of faces and screen personas included published professionals, but also a significant number of biotech R&D heads hoping for the next break in the industry. Even the Elysium-whatsit, that odd cult that showed up at any high-profile science talk, had decided to send a representative, to his chagrin.

He had to divert a barrage of questions, usually with the rejoinder of “If you read my dissertation…” Really, who attends a presentation like this _without_ reading the paper? If he’d done that at any of _their_ lectures they’d likely chew him out.

George got a buzz from his cell for an audio-only call and used it as an excuse to extricate himself from pestering intellectuals and businessmen. “Hello?”

“So, am I a space alien?”

His jaw dropped a little when he recognized the voice. “Are you _here_?”

“Look out in the hall.”

Most of the students were on their way out by then, but one figure sat conspicuously in the middle of the auditorium, cell phone in hand. She had on a fedora, a large pair of shaded glasses, and a big grin. George felt the butterflies start the moment he saw her.

“Just your mitochondria. Maybe. You’re _mostly_ human.”

“Good. I was wondering whether I was ET, or a xenomorph…”

“Or a Na’vi?”

“Oh hell no, I look awful in blue.”

George laughed. “Is there a reason you’re here, Kana? Or do you just want to make fun of my life’s work?”

The call suddenly switched to video, and he could see her face up close. Kanade flipped her shades off, revealing her bright blue eyes, and her smile turned a little strained. “My aunt woke up three hours ago.”

“ _Shit!_ ” George swore a little too loudly before he could stop himself, and he saw a few gray heads glance at him disapprovingly. Right at that moment, he didn’t care what they thought, because his pulse had just hit about 150. “Saya’s awake? You’re serious?”

“You’re pale as a sheet, George, calm down.”

“Calm d—how’re _you_ so calm? It’s been 28 years, and she’s awake, and goddamn this is huge…”

“And your voice is going up a lot and that Korean lady who seriously thinks I come from outer space is scowling like Uncle Kai on a bad day. Do you really want them to hear?”

“No,” he replied, switching to Japanese. “But you have to see why this is important…”

“It _is_ , yeah, but flipping out won’t accomplish anything.”

“She’s _your_ aunt. You have to be excited to meet her.”

Kanade’s eyes flickered away from the screen, as if she couldn’t look straight at him to say, “More or less.” Her eyes came back, and she continued in English. “So, are you game for heading back home?”

“Sure, sure, I’ll just have to clear it with my university…”

“Right, the job thingy. They’ll be cool with you dropping everything like this?”

“I imagine they’ll insist I give them first dibs on whatever data I get from Saya.”

“Ugh,” Kanade grimaced. George knew she hated thinking of anyone in her family as data, but it was the truth. “Whatever. Let’s get going. I hate Seattle.” She hung up.

He excused himself from the stage and she rose from her seat. They met halfway and each took a moment to look the other over. It had been close to two years since they’d last met face to face. He didn’t know how he looked to her, but to George, Kanade hadn’t changed at all. Well, her makeup and hairstyle were slightly different, but otherwise her appearance had remained unchanged since she was in high school. She’d managed to age herself with makeup until she was believable around twenty-one or twenty-two. Without it, she looked perhaps seventeen.

Of course, in reality, Kanade was twenty-eight. The downside of immortality.

She was smiling, which was always nice to see. Actually, everything about Kanade was always nice to see, but George knew better than to say anything like that out loud. Instead he bit down a lump of tension and remarked, “You look well.”

“And you look dashing. I swear, girls outnumbered guys two to one in that crowd. You are going to be the hot professor.”

George flushed slightly. He’d gotten used to comments about his looks – he took after his father – but from Kanade it was always awkward. “I’m hoping my classes will have enough prerequisites that I’ll avoid groupies. Did mom send you?”

“She seemed to think we should come together.”

 _Of course_ , George thought wryly. There was unfortunately no way to tell his mother that ship had sailed without getting into the details of why. “Do we have tickets?”

“Ordered ’em for tomorrow,” she said cheerfully. “We’re not sitting next to each other, unfortunately, but what can you do at the last minute?”

“Pull Red Shield rank and insist someone swap with us?”

“Well, sure, if we were assholes.”

George laughed. Kanade truly _hadn’t_ changed. “And for tonight?”

“Tonight I force you to have fun.”

“ _Your_ kind of fun,” he quipped.

“My kind is better than yours.” She glanced at his wardrobe. “Honestly, who wears ties anymore?”

“Doctoral grads with waiting assistant professorships.” George sighed. “A professorship…You know, you think you have things all planned out, then life just throws something into the mix. It’s a shame dad isn’t here to see this…”

“Well, at least this is a _good_ thing in the mix,” Kanade said, though George wondered from her tone just how much she meant it.

“If it’s not a good thing,” he said gently, “then we’ll _make_ it one. It’s a chance to see your sister, after all.”

“Right.” Kanade gave a tight smile. “And I will have my best friend with me, so it will all be great.”

George sighed again. Best friend. “And now I suppose I have to prepare myself for copious consumption of alcohol?”

“Exactly.” She brushed off his hand and reached up to tweek his nose, only to hesitate and drop her hand back to her side. A silence ensued.

George cleared his throat. “Well, I know some bars. I’ll, um, do my quick texts and then we’ll meet out in the lobby?”

“That works,” Kanade said, a little too quickly. “I’ll see you in just a bit!”

“Right.”

And as she bid a hasty retreat to the lobby, George allowed himself one last look, before returning to the simpler world of academia.

 

***

 

From behind a one-way mirror Julia Silverstein watched Saya and Hagi in the examination room. The sleeping girl and her stalwart guardian were surrounded by an array of the most up-to-date medical equipment – body scans, vital sign monitors, robotic aides – as well as a handful of nurses who were operating them. Over the speaker, Julia could hear one of them, a young man from India, carrying on an extensive one-way conversation with Hagi, who would only occasionally nod, his eyes never leaving his queen’s sleeping form.

In spite of the decades that she’d technically known him, Hagi was still a cipher to Julia and to everyone else at Red Shield. Tall, slim, quiet, unchanged since Saya had made him her Chevalier more than a century and a half ago. George called them “drones” in his work, as part of his insect analogy, but she liked the French term that Saya had always used.

At the moment, however, Hagi was less of a knight and more a doting family member, holding her hand and stroking her hair as she slid back into sleep.

It made Julia smile sadly. She remembered sitting the same way by David’s bedside as he’d gotten older. Seven months wasn’t long enough to be over that.

Her melancholy stream of thought was broken by a knock at the door. Julia turned and saw Joel Goldsmith at the door. The chairman of Red Shield glanced at the speaker and she turned it off.

“How are things going in there?”

She had to blink a few times and rub the bridge of her nose before answering. “The same. She stays awake for a half an hour or so, then falls asleep for several hours. Doesn’t recognize anyone other than Hagi, can’t talk…” Julia yawned.

“How long have you been up?”

“Well, I woke up when she did, so…twenty three hours.”

Joel walked to the chair beside her, the gears in his artificial legs whining slightly as he sat down. “Will it do any good for me to tell you to get some sleep?” he said, with a wry smile.

Julia shook her head. “I know I should. I tried, actually. Tossed and turned for an hour before deciding I’d see if there was any change.”

“And there wasn’t.”

“No. Though she _is_ doing better than the last time she woke up, that’s for certain. No doubt that’s attributable to Hagi’s presence.”

“So long as we don’t have another Vietnam, I think it’s a victory.” Joel ran a hand through his graying hair. “Truth be told, I couldn’t sleep either. When you’ve been waiting for something for thirty years, it seems like a waste to miss any moment of it.”

The two watched the nurses tend Saya’s sleeping form for a while. The readings of all the machines were displayed on the panels below the window, though they must have been meaningless to Joel, who only managed the business end of their vast operation.

“Well, I think I’m dozing off here,” he said with a slight chuckle. “Keep me updated. And if you need anything to help you sleep, I’m sure you know where we keep the meds.”

Joel rose to his feet with a slight creek and patted Julia on the shoulder. She touched her old friend’s hand gently. “Good night.”

Before he could let the door slide shut behind him, Julia saw an intern dashing down the hallway. “Ah, Mr. Bao?”

The intern came to a skittering halt. “Yes, Dr. Silverstein? Mr. Goldsmith?”

“You’re Bao Chunjia, right? The intern on duty when Q2 woke up?”

He was clearly nervous to be talking to the head of Red Shield and its chief scientist. “Er, yes, that was me.”

“How much was the pot?”

Chunjia stood slack-jawed.

“Oh please, everyone knows there was a pool going for who’d be on duty when she woke up. How much did you win?”

The intern gulped. “About… about five-hundred thousand yen.”

Joel gave a low whistle.

“Spend it well,” Julia said with a warm smile.

Chunjia instantly looked relieved. “Yes, I will. Thank you.”

 

***

“So do they _really_ make you wear a tie?”

“There’s no rule, but it’s never a bad idea to model your wardrobe after the people who you want to hire you.”

“Ugh, no wonder you all look stuck in the twentieth century. This is so why you should work in the arts, we don’t give a crap what you wear so long as you look good in it.”

“Oh, I’m twentieth-century? You’re wearing a _fedora_ , Kana. Indoors.”

“But I look good in fedoras.” Kanade tapped the brim. “Doncha think?”

George opened his mouth to answer, reconsidered, and decided to change the subject. “There are other advantages to being an artist, I suppose. Setting your own schedule probably makes dropping everything to travel to the other side of the world a lot easier.”

“I’ve got my deadlines, same as you. The difference is that it doesn’t matter where I work. No office, no name on the wall.”

“Well, if this had been just a decade ago it would have been harder to be going off like this. I can handle almost all the seminars I was going to teach online. I just had to convince them that Red Shield had the necessary projector equipment.”

“Did you tell them that our equipment probably makes theirs look like total shit?”

George laughed. “Not in so many words, but they are aware of Red Shield’s reputation.”

They were sitting at a quiet table in The White Walls, the best bar George had yet found in Seattle. Brightly lit with a classic car theme, it catered to an older, less rowdy crowd. It was “tame” in Saya’s not-so-humble estimation, but George pointed out that he was meeting her halfway by even agreeing to go out for drinks at all, and she’d dropped the complaint.

“It’s the time difference I’m more concerned about,” George went on. “I’ve got a month until I have to start actually teaching, at which point I’ll have to readjust my sleep schedule to be back on Pacific Time. That’s, what, fourteen hours off Japan?”

“Fifteen. Ask Hibi how she manages it, ’cause she does, somehow. Segmented sleep, I think she said.” Kanade was playing with her glass intently. “I haven’t been back in five years, ya know?”

“That’s what you said, yes.”

“I’m not totally sure I _want_ to go back. You know that too, right?”

“You’ve been subtle, but I picked up on it.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I like Okinawa — I _love_ Okinawa. If we have any time at all, I’m doing all the sites again, the whole stamp-run at Shuri Castle that I did every year when we were kids, whatever. It’s a beautiful place. What I mean is—don’t take this the wrong way, George, because you and your mom are different, but to everyone else at Red Shield, my sister and I, we’re just lab rats.”

George hesitated. He knew what he _wanted_ to do, but they’d agreed not to, but she looked so distraught… he reached out and took her hand. Kanade froze at first, but hesitantly squeezed back. For a moment their eyes met—

Kanade pulled her hand away and turned her gaze back to her glass. “Damn.” She laughed humorlessly. “You’d think I’d be over that by now.”

“My fault.”

“No, it’s me, and you know it.” She drank the rest of her glass in one swift gulp and let it drop to the table with a clank. “I meant it, you know,” Kanade snapped, her face flushed.

“Meant what?”

“Meant it when I wanted to know if I was an alien. I’d _rather_ be an alien than a monster.”

“You’re not a monster—”

“Then what am I!?” Kanade barked, much too loudly for the crowd at The White Walls. More than a few heads turned to stare at the couple, and the embarrassment was enough to make Kanade calm herself down.

“You’re human,” George answered quietly, his hands now folded safely under the table. “You heard my talk. It’s all in the mitochondria. Your nucleic DNA is within the range of human.”

“‘Within the range’?”

“Any species is a range, okay? We could probably use your nucleic DNA to clone a completely typical human version of you, if we used a cell with human mitochondria. As for our… problem, people who _don’t_ have alien power generators in their cells have dealt with worse.”

Kanade was still flushed, but George hoped that was from the alcohol. “You _do_ think it’s alien?”

“I… I have no idea, really. I was sort of hoping Dr. Bolser would actually come to the talk, at least virtually, but I didn’t see him anywhere.”

“Bolser’s the one with the alien theory?”

“Yeah. Brilliant guy, from what I’ve read, but if you ask me, exobiology is still ninety-nine percent speculative bull pucky.”

“Bull _shit_ , George. I know you know how to swear.”

“Fine, speculative bullshit, but I guess what _I’m_ doing was speculative bullshit the last time Saya was awake, so who knows? Maybe by the time she’s through her next cycle we’ll have found life on Alpha Centauri or something.”

Kanade managed to smile. “Well, I’ll still be around.” Her eyes got wide. “Ohmigawd that is totally what they should do!”

George gave her a baffled looked.

“Hibiki and me! We’d be, like, the _perfect_ long-range astronauts! Think about it!”

“Well, maybe Hibiki. _You’d_ need more of a social life.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, just Hibi then. Though,” and here she paused and swayed slightly, “I think I have had enough of a social life for tonight, if I’m going to make the flight tomorrow.”

“Gotcha.” George resisted the urge to help her up as she staggered slightly. Whether it was something particular to her chiropteran metabolism or just her perpetually teenaged body, Kanade was a serious lightweight. Agreeing to a night out with drinks meant agreeing to get her back home, and hoping that it wouldn’t require physical contact.

But tonight she managed to get to the cab by her own power and said goodbye to him through the window with a little wave. He told it her hotel address, and the cab whisked her away into the misty Seattle night.

George let out a sigh as her cab disappeared. He was barely buzzed, but exhausted from just the few hours they’d spent together. He was more than a little glad they had separate seats for the transpacific flight.

 

***

 

She opened her eyes slowly, because the room was so bright. Too bright, like the sun, but from every direction. Everything was very white and smelled very clean. There were sounds, muffled, rhythmic, some strange, others… voices. But she couldn’t understand what they were saying.

“Où suis-je?” she whispered.

“Vous êtes en sécurité,” came a soft voice, and she turned in its direction.

A pale face framed by long black hair. Gray eyes, warm, kind, familiar. “Hagi.”

“Oui.”

He was holding her right hand. She looked to her left arm. There was something piercing it, some kind of long thread, made of some substance she’d never seen. She reached to pull it out, but Hagi pulled her hand back. “Non.”

“C’est quoi?”

“Votre nourriture.”

She followed the long thread with her eyes, from her arm up to a bag, dark red. It made her stomach grumble. “C’est—?”

“Le sang.”

Blood. _My food is blood_. She knew this. She remembered it, the taste of it, when she woke up, and from before, from some time long ago.

Long ago… how long ago? Where was she? _Who_ was she? She began to panic, her heart pounding, trying to sit up. Hagi shook his head, not at her, though, at other people in the room who had started to approach her. She didn’t recognize any of them, people of strange skin and eyes. She began to shake her head back and forth. “Non! Non, non, non!”

“Saya,” Hagi said softly, and that was her name. With it came other memories, a large house in the country, with gardens and a lake and a tower, far from anywhere. Where she came from. Where she was born.

Other thoughts, other memories flickered as though in her peripheral vision. She tried to catch them, but they disappeared as soon as she focused on them. But now, at least, she had a name.

Seeing her calm, Hagi let her sit up and she looked around the room. It was crowded with strange objects, boxes covered in lights and strange letters, others that moved by themselves like wind-up toys. Strange people as well, though they were now standing back away from her. Saya was sitting on a bed in the center of all of it, Hagi in a chair beside her.

On a far wall was a mirror, and she turned to see herself. Small, pale, black hair cut short, very recently by how it felt when she touched it. She was dressed in some sort of shift held together by ties. The strangers were wearing white robes, gloves, and hats. Only Hagi looked normal, in his black suit.

Near the mirror was a door, and when it opened an elderly woman entered. Her hair was gray and pulled back from her lined face. She was dressed much like the strangers, but Saya could swear she knew her.

“Qui êtes-vous?”

The woman hesitated, said something unintelligible, and then one of the toys, of all wonders, spoke, saying “Je sui Julia Silverstein.”

Saya shrieked. It had _talked_. Not just a recording, like on a gramophone, but actual speech, it had answered her question, that was _impossible_. Her disorientation returned, as other impossible images flitted through her mind – moving pictures, flying vehicles, ships the size of cities – unreal yet real… _How long have I been asleep?_

Hagi grasped her hand more tightly, and the woman, Julia held up a hand in caution. “You’ve been asleep for a very long time.”

“Vous avez été endormi un temps très long,” the machine translated.

“These are just machines.”

“Ce ne sont que de machines.”

“They will help us until you remember how to speak English.”

“Ils vont nous aider...”

But even as this strange, relayed conversation happened, bits of what Julia was saying made sense, a few words here and there. Until she remembered how to speak English… she knew this language once, she could learn it again.

And as Julia spoke to her, other memories surfaced. Julia. She was a doctor and a scientist, even though she was a woman, and she’d helped her before when… when something had happened, Saya couldn’t remember right now. There was something else, too, some other person who’d been connected with Julia.

Ah, yes. She’d been married. If she thought hard enough, Saya could even remember the wedding, simple, with faces of other people, too fogged by forgetfulness to recognize.

“Où est David?”

There was a tightening around Julia’s mouth and eyes, a half-concealed look of pain. Saya didn’t need to hear the machine translate her reply.

For reasons she still couldn’t remember, tears poured from Saya’s eyes.

 

***

 

The analytical part of Julia’s mind, the part trying to stay afloat the flood of feeling, was coolly considering how much better Saya was doing this time around than she had in 2004. Then, she’d been unresponsive and non-verbal for nearly a month, whereas now, barely a day in, she was already speaking. Clearly Saya was remembering her languages in the order she’d learned them, French first, then, based on Joel’s notes, the next would be either Latin or English, followed by Russian, German, and Japanese…

But the emotional part of her wanted to rush ahead. To tell Saya David had never recovered from the wounds he’d received protecting her, but how he’d never regretted it either. How she and David had a son, George, who’d just earned his doctorate and she was so proud of him. How Saya’s nieces were grown and accomplished, how Kai had raised them so well. How Okinawa had changed, how the world had changed, how chiropterans weren’t a secret anymore.

Not that any of that would mean anything to her right now.

Instead, she stepped forward and held the crying girl in arms, and shed a few tears of her own. “It’s going to be all right,” she said, softly, the way she would when George had nightmares as a child. “You’ll be all right. Just…give it time.”


	2. The Recluse Leaves Home

_It was an unusually warm spring day, and Kai and Masako had taken the three of them to one of the public beaches. Too early in the season for the swarms of tourists that would come in the summer, the children had the place mostly to themselves. Seagulls wheeled above the blue-green of the shallow waters called_ inoh _in Okinawan, and out over the dark blue of the depths beyond. It was sunny, with a slight breeze, the perfect weather for kite-flying._

_It was in trying to catch a wayward kite that the accident happened. Kai and Masako had let them play just beyond eye’s reach, and George, never the most coordinated boy, had lost his footing and tumbled down a sandbank._

_Hibiki stood frozen, and Kanade gasped. George struggled to his feet, but he was clearly hurting, and trying hard not to cry in front of the girls. “Let’s go,” Kanade said to her sister, but Hibiki just looked at the six-foot drop and shook her head. Kanade rolled her eyes at her timid sister and easily jumped, catlike, to the sand below._

_“Are you okay?”_

_George bit his lip and shook his head. He’d snagged his arm on a branch as he’d rolled down, and was bleeding pretty badly._

_“Uncle Kai will fix it,” she assured him, but for some reason she couldn’t take her eyes off his arm. “Hibi, go get Uncle Kai.”_

_As her sister ran off, George followed her gaze to his cut. “It’s not so bad, just messy,” he said, the quiver in his voice ruining any reassurance._

_But that wasn’t what was bothering Kanade, and when her stomach growled she turned bright red. “Sorry, I don’t know why—”_

_George simply held out his arm. “It’s okay, if you want to. Just be careful not to bite me, mom said that would be bad.”_

_Kanade hesitated. It seemed very bad, somehow, to do this, but she’d been very hungry ever since she saw it. A_ little _taste wouldn’t hurt, would it? She leaned forward and licked the blood off his arm, until she got the cut…_

Kanade awoke with a start as the monorail rounded a curve, cramming the passenger next to her into her right shoulder. It had been only a seven hour flight from Seattle to Narita International Airport, but the shuttle had been delayed far past its late morning departure time. To Kanade, it was almost eleven, even though it was two in the afternoon the next day in Tokyo.

Apparently George was just as tired as her, because he’d fallen asleep as well. The crush of passengers on the train had pushed them together, and his head was leaning against her shoulder. _Well, no wonder I had that dream_ , Kanade thought, as she dug her nails into her palms and tried oh so very hard to ignore how good he smelled. She looked around the car and saw a woman in her eighties holding on to one of the straps for dear life, and elbowed George in the ribs.

“George, wake up,” she said, making sure to use English.

He blinked bleary-eyed at first, but once he realized where his head was positioned he sat up straight and tried to inch as far away from her as he could in the crowded car.

“I think you should give the lady your seat,” Kanade whispered, digging her nails in even deeper.

George didn’t waste an instant, standing up and gesturing to the vacant seat. The old lady smiled, and with a “Domo” took his spot.

With sufficient space between them, Kanade relaxed her hands and let out a sigh of relief. Crisis averted, nothing had happened, thank _God_.

They were on the high-speed monorail that ran between Narita and Haneda airports. Any plans to expand Haneda and make it a truly international airport had been scrapped after the damage of the Tōyoko quake, but at least they’d made a train line that ran directly from one airport to the other, eliminating the bus ride through Tokyo’s perpetually heavy traffic.

The train was packed with passengers, and George was the only white person onboard. He never seemed uncomfortable with that. Living in Okinawa for ten years probably had something to do with it. Or maybe George was simply more confident than her. He ignored the stares he got, whether they were from Japanese people curious about a foreigner, or the college girls at his talk yesterday who clearly didn’t give two shits about organic chemistry.

_If it weren’t for my fucking problems…_

George smiled at her. “Are you okay?” he asked, again in English.

“Jetlag sucks. I wish this trip could just be _over_ already.”

“We’ll be there soon enough.” The train passed a narrow area between two buildings and the outside turned dark and the rumble of the rails echoed. “Will Hibiki be meeting us at the airport?”

Kanade shrugged. “Only if Uncle Kai can get her out of her apartment.”

 

***

 

“Obviously I understand if it’s a family emergency,” Fujioka said. His video was a live feed, and Hibiki could see her portly agent ad yet to shave this morning. “It’s a hell of a part to pass on, though.”

“I know, and I’d _love_ to be in the _BeruBara_ reboot, you have no idea, but I’m going to be busy enough that I don’t think I can make the group recording sessions. I’ll keep the solo work, but Rosalie will have to be played by somebody else.”

Fujioka sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “They wanted you badly too… is it really that big a deal?”

“Well, I’m leaving my apartment for it, so...”

His eyes widened. “That’s very important then. TMS will be disappointed, but I’ll work something out.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Fujioka. This means a great deal to me that you’re taking care of this.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “No, no, I wouldn’t be a good agent if I didn’t take care of this kind of problem for my best client. Let me know as soon as your schedule is clear.”

“I will,” and he signed off.

Hibiki turned off her Masking software and rubbed her eyes. That was the last call. She’d had to let all her part-time jobs know she’d be occupied for the next few months. Those people who mattered, those people who actually knew what was really going on rather than the story she’d concocted for Fujioka and the others, she’d talked to them as well. Melisa, Thulani, Melati, Evert, Corynn. Hibiki could count the number of people who she spoke to without a Mask to hide her appearance on one hand, her closest friends. That they lived thousands of kilometers apart changed nothing.

She rose from the chair in front of her main computer display and did a long stretch that turned into a Tai-chi routine. She gave a command and her stereo system played the appropriate music as she worked her way through the postures, graceful after years of practice. She was nearly finished when the doorbell rang, startling her. Hibiki glanced at the clock and frowned. Kai wasn’t supposed to be here for another half an hour… she went to her door, turned on the view screen, and saw her private shopper, Mrs. Higa, standing outside with a small bag. Hibiki slapped her forehead. She’d completely forgotten about her last delivery.

Hibiki unlocked and opened the door, letting the short middle-aged woman come in. “It’s not much, since you said you’ll be away for a while,” Mrs. Higa told her, setting the bag down on the kitchen counter. “Just the fluids and a few toiletry items. I’m still quite amazed that you’re leaving at all.”

“It’s necessity.” Hibiki peered in the bag to check its contents. They matched the receipt, as usual, so she transferred the fee to Mrs. Higa’s account. Her first personal shopper had tried to rip her off, and while Mrs. Higa had proved completely reliable, it had made her cautious with every purchase.

“Let me know when you’re coming back,” Mrs. Higa said as the transfer went through. “I don’t want to lose my best customer.”

“I’ll give you a Christmas bonus for being patient about this,” Hibiki said, smiling. It didn’t pass on to Mrs. Higa, though, who was just as courteously cold as usual. What she lacked in friendliness she at least made up for in discretion, and given the grisly things she had to buy, Hibiki could hardly blame her for not wanting to chat.

Once Mrs. Higa was gone, she pulled out the packet of blood. Taking a mug from the cupboard, Hibiki opened the packet, filled the cup, mixed in some anticoagulants and heated the concoction for about a minute in the microwave. Once it was warmed up, she sipped it slowly, running through the checklist in her mind to see if she’d forgotten anything.

She was packed, her trash was left outside, her water and electricity would be turned off tomorrow, and everyone who needed to know of her absence had been informed. None of her preparations, however, completely eliminated the sinking feeling in her stomach.

Hibiki looked around her apartment, most of it a single large, square room. The south side was mostly window, looking out over Naha, with the blue of the ocean lining the horizon beyond row after row of building. The kitchen area, where she was now, was separated from the rest of apartment by an island counter with stools that worked well enough for one person to eat at. Her bed was pushed to the northwest corner, with a few screens keeping it out of sight of her computer terminals, her passages to the outside world. A folded gym machine was in another corner, a bathroom adjoined the kitchen through a small door. The main central area was empty, however, to allow for the massive gaming system she owned. Motion sensors were imbedded in the floor, and a large screen filled the north wall between her bed and the door. Betaing video games was her second part-time job, and her second most lucrative after voice acting. It was a very nice apartment, very spacious and state-of-the-art.

And Hibiki hadn’t left it for three years.

Well, that wasn’t it entirely true. Late at night, when no one was out, she would run her trash to the receptacle in the lobby, but otherwise she stayed within the 40 or so square meters of her apartment. Her last attempt to leave had been disastrous, when she’d been between shoppers, and had tried to purchase food on her own. She’s finally had to abandon her attempts to buy alcohol in shame when the clerk refused to believe her ID (which identified her as twenty-five) was correct. “Pick a more believable age,” he’d sneered as he handed it back to her.

And really, why leave? In the twenty-first century, you could do everything online. She’d gone to college online, she worked online, she socialized online. It had its disadvantages; Hibiki would be lying if she didn’t say she’d like to travel someday. But it was a small price to pay for the peace she’d found cut off from the world. Technology could alter her face to make her look her real age. She never had to explain or justify herself, and until Saya had woken a few days ago, she’d hadn’t even had to lie to anyone about what she was for years.

Really, Miyagi Hibiki (her professional name) was famous _because_ of how reclusive she was. The voice actress, star of _Macross Infinity_ , only giving teleinterviews? There were rumors she really _was_ a computer program, just like the character she’d played.

Hibiki filled and drained her cup one more time, before washing and drying it. The empty blood package went in the bag of biohazard trash that she filled at least once a month. If the garbage collectors wondered about that, she didn’t care.

The doorbell rang again, and this time she knew it had to be Kai. She put the toiletries Mrs. Higa had purchased into her cosmetics bag, slung it over her shoulder, and rolled the rest of the luggage to the door.

Her hand paused above the button to open the door. It was shaking. _This is ridiculous, it’s just Uncle Kai_ , but that wasn’t what was making her nervous, and she knew it. She forced herself to push the button anyway.

The door slid open, this time revealing the familiar face of her uncle. Age had grayed most of his hair, but what was left of it had still browned during the summer (Hibiki supposed hers would too, if she ever went outside). He was smiling, which looked strange, albeit sincere. Kai just had one of those faces that tended naturally toward frowning, and unless you knew him he could come across as intimidating.

“Are you ready to go?”

Hibiki nodded. After that, there was a long pause, finally broken by Kai’s cough.

“Then, um, let’s get going.” He stepped back further from the door to give her more space.

She tried to move, but her legs were shaking slightly. Her heart was hammering away in her chest, and she was having trouble breathing. Hibiki looked down at her feet, trying to will them forward, only to have the floor sway slightly. Kai caught her before she could fall, and the smile was gone from his face, replaced with a concerned scowl. “Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, you could just meet her online, no one would complain.”

“No!” Hibiki was surprised by the strength in her voice. “No, I _have_ to see her in person. I’ve wanted to my whole life, and I’ll do it. I’ll… I’ll be better once we get to Red Shield, I know it. I just… I need to get to the car…”

Kai grabbed her suitcase and shifted so that his arm was hooked through hers. “I’ll help you walk. Focus on breathing, okay?”

Hibiki gulped and nodded again. Her heart was still racing and her breath was ragged, but she managed to take a step forward into the hallway. That broke down a wall of some kind, and the next several steps went more easily.

“Good,” Kai said, smiling a little more now. “We’re just going down the hall, down the elevator, and to the lobby. Think of it like you’re taking the trash out. You do that by yourself, right?”

Hibiki knew he was just trying to keep her mind busy, and she appreciated it. “Yes, a few times a week.”

“Right, so this is no big deal. It’s pretty bright outside,” her armed tensed up, “so I bought you some sunglasses and a hat. I hope they’re not too out-of-style.”

They’d reached the elevator, and unfortunately it wasn’t empty. A tired-looking salaryman was already inside, and Kai did his best customer service face and apologized as their luggage took up much of the space. Hibiki didn’t like the look he gave her, a mix of curiosity and disdain. Neither did Kai, apparently; she saw her uncle’s hands turn briefly to fists before he took a deep breath, and continued their conversation.

“Is there anywhere you’d like us to drive past on the way?”

Hibiki thought for a moment. “I don’t suppose we can go by Shuri-jou?”

“Not right by, but I know a route where you can see it from a distance. They’ve expanded on it since the last time we went, you know.”

“Yes, I read that.”

“I was thinking we might take a seaside road as we go north. Masako has a new favorite spot she wanted to show you.”

Hibiki’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Aunt Masako is with you?”

“Of course. We only have the one car, we couldn’t go separately. Besides, it’s been a month since we last saw you face-to-face, this is a good opportunity for us all to talk.”

The elevator reached the ground floor and the salaryman dashed out ahead of them. They walked together more slowly, through the sunlit lobby. Hibiki hadn’t been down here in the daytime for longer than she could remember; even her last disastrous trip had been after dark. She hesitated again, but the gentle insistence of Kai’s arm hooked through her dragged her into sunlight and to the door.

She had to close her eyes against the light, and Kai quickly pulled out the sunglasses he’d promised. “Masako has your hat in the car,” he explained. “It’s only about half a block.”

Behind the black of the large shades, Hibiki’s eyes adjusted and she could see the narrow busy street, crowded with people, bicycles, and cars. A cacophony of sounds, traffic mixed with voices in Japanese and Okinawan, here and there trace of music, assaulted her ears. She found herself swaying slightly again, but Kai firmly led her down the street to where his car was parked.

Standing next to the car, hat in hand, was Masako, her aunt by marriage. When she smiled, it looked much more natural than Kai, and simply seeing her face made Hibiki’s anxiety ease slightly. Her aunt hugged her as they reached the car and placed the hat on her head. “There,” she declared. “Now you look dashing.”

Kai opened the door and helped her in before taking the driver’s seat. The confined space of the car, with just the three of them, was quieter and less overwhelming. Hibiki took a deep breath, smelling the old familiar scents of the beat-up Toyota Kai had driven for more than ten years. They pulled out into traffic, and she watched the kaleidoscope of the outside world pass by through the windows.

While her uncle’s attempts at casual conversation were a bit forced in their attempts to hide his concern, his wife simply smiled at her from the front seat. “Are you handling this all right?”

Hibiki nodded, and realized it was the truth. Here, where it was quiet, things were more fascinating than intimidating. It was just the three of them.

“There’s Shuri-jou,” Kai said after a few minutes. “Look fast.”

She did, and caught the restored castle’s roofs between buildings. There were memories there, of summers long gone. A place inaccessible to her now. Summers with Saya, with her family, with the Silversteins.

“Goodbye,” she whispered, as it vanished behind them.

 

***

 

It was only his second time coming to Red Shield’s headquarters since the building had been finished, and Kai still didn’t like the place.

They’d come in through a back entrance, avoiding the public lobby, which would’ve overwhelmed poor Hibiki. He was amazed how well his niece was holding up, all things considered. Even in the more classified areas of the buildings they were in now, there was still a bustle of people, all of them taking a moment to gape at Q4’s entrance.

 _That’s my niece you’re staring at_ , he thought irritably. His bad mood muse have shown, because Masako placed a hand on his arm and gave a little shake of her head.

Kai sighed and watched as Julia walked across the small waiting room they were sitting in, a welcoming smile on her face. “It’s been too long – all of you,” she said, shaking their hands. “You especially, Hibiki, though George keeps me up to date on your conversations.”

“Good,” she replied, absently. Hibiki’s eyes were darting from figure to figure. She’d kept her hat on, and tugged it slightly to conceal her face.

Julia hadn’t seemed to notice her anxiety, or maybe she was choosing not to draw to attention to it. “Speaking of my son, he messaged me that they’ve just arrived at the airport in Naha. He and Kanade should be here in a few hours.”

“Maybe we should have waited so we could bring them with us,” Kai thought out loud. He glanced at Masako, who was smiling politely, which meant she only understood some of the conversation. “George and Kana are on their way,” he translated into Japanese.

“Ah.”

Julia placed a hand to her cheek. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She continued on, but speaking much more slowly and precisely. “I don’t have any news about Saya. It’s only been 48 hours, so she’s still mostly sleeping. If I can tear him away from her, Hagi might want to talk to you.”

Kai snorted. “Good luck with that.” Saya’s Chevalier had visited Okinawa on and off over the decades, and had apparently taken up some kind of permanent residence in the area of the island near the headquarters within the last few years. In spite of all that, he rarely stopped to see Saya’s nieces, and barely spoke while he was there. Calling the man taciturn would be an understatement.

Masako hesitated before asking, in halting English, “Where will we stay here?”

“Apartments are set up for all of you in the staff wing—” Julia began.

“So we’re going to be living side by side with all of your researched? No, I’m not having Kanade and Hibiki be surrounded by surveillance—” Kai saw that his wife wasn’t following again, his voice having sped up in his anger. “I want us to have more privacy,” he told her in Japanese.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” she answered back.

Julia, who knew only a smattering of Japanese, cleared her throat until she had their attention again. “The rooms are on a separate floor. Will that work?”

“I suppose,” Kai muttered. “But will anyone have access--”

“I want to see her,” Hibiki blurted out. The other three turned to her, somewhat startled. Hibiki’s eyes were fixed on her hands, which were bunching up her skirt. “I want to see her,” she repeated.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Julia said softly.

Hibiki shook her head forcefully. “I only came out here because I want to see her. I don’t have to talk to her or anything, I…I just have to _see_ her.”

Kai and Julia shared a look. The doctor finally sighed. “If you really want to, I don’t see the harm in it. It’ll be behind glass, though. I don’t know how she’d react to seeing you, this early after awakening.”

Hibiki nodded, and raised her eyes. “I understand. Kanade and I would remind her of her sister.”

 _Diva_ , Kai thought, bitterly as always. _Troubling us from beyond the grave_. “I could come with you, if you want?” He looked back at Masako. “Do you want to see her too?”

A wary look passed his wife’s face. It suddenly occurred to Kai that Hibiki might not be the only one feeling stressed today, and he inwardly kicked himself. _I’m a bad husband sometimes_. “I should,” Masako said at last. “She is family.” In Japanese, however, “This is all a bit much to take in, Kai. It’s one thing to _know_ about your family’s situation, it’s another thing to be actually seeing it.”

“I know.” He squeezed her hand. Masako had never gone with him to the clinic for Kanade and HIbiki to get their transfusions when they were growing up. She always said she wanted to see them as little girls first, not Chiropteran queens. “We’ll go together.”

 

***

Julia led them down a hallway, keeping a close eye on Hibiki. Kai would be fine as long as Masako was here to temper his bad moods. His niece, however, was less of a certainty. Julia had tried to keep in touch with her after she and David had moved back to America when George entered high school. After Hibiki had entered college, however, the emails and calls had dried up entirely. She’d learned indirectly from Kai about her depression and self-seclusion, and had passed along information about online opportunities. But that help hadn’t reopened communications with Hibiki at all.

At least she kept contact with George; that gave her some avenue for determining how Q4 might react to finally seeing Q2. Though she was more concerned how Q2 would react when she saw how much the twins resembled their mother.

None of the Miyagusuku family had been given clearance to Saya’s observation room for precisely that danger, so Julia had to swipe her card to open the door. She gave her most diplomatic smile and gestured for them to enter. Kai almost took a step forward, but glanced back at his wife before shaking his head and squeezing Masako’s arm. “I’ll wait. Let Hibi take her turn first.”

“You don’t have to push this,” Julia reminded Hibiki as the young woman stepped forward. “There will be plenty of time to meet her. Right now she only speaks French…”

“I speak French. West African dialect, but still.”

Julia cleared her throat. “I…I didn’t know that.”

“I speak a lot of languages. Chinese, Spanish, Arabic...so does Kana. George thinks it might be our brains…” her explanation trailed off as she entered the room, her breath catching in her throat as she saw Saya, sleeping, through the glass. Hagi was still next to her, though he was now reading a book one of the staff had brought. Something to pass the time for a man who never slept.

“There she is. Your aunt.”

Hibiki nodded. “I’ve seen pictures. She looks exactly the same.”

“And she always will. You have that in common.”

“Unfortunately.”

Hibiki’s voice had a sting of bitterness. Julia didn’t know how to answer that, instead choosing to watch her in silence. Her face was utterly blank, but her hands were twitching, playing with her skirt. Julia couldn’t tell if it was agitation, or she just wasn’t used to wearing one. She braced herself for some kind of outburst. Frustration? Tears? A hasty retreat?

Hibiki, though, breathed a sigh of relief and leaned her head against the glass. “And now there are three of us,” she said, with a smile.


	3. Uncle Kai

[Spring 2013]

The beginning of peak tourist season was still a month away, and so at three in the afternoon the Omoro Dining Bar was all but empty. Katou and Kakimoto had taken their delayed lunch break, after which they’d gone off to buy food from the wholesaler. Kai took the spare time to catch up on cleaning, scrubbing the counter and tables down and wishing that he had an extra set of hands around, or the extra cash to hire someone.

He heard a tinkle of bells as the door swung open, and yelled “ _Irashaimase—_ ” without bothering to look up at who had entered. When he heard the hearty laugh, Kai dropped what he was doing. “Lewis!”

The portly black man was dressed in his usual ensemble of a brightly colored shirt, open over a darker T below, and a pair of khakis. His bald head was gleaming in the later afternoon sun, and he hadn’t bothered taking off his sunglasses when he came in. “If you want me to practice my Japanese on you, that’s fine, Kai, but don’t get mad if I say something rude.”

“No, it’s my fault, dad always said to look at who your customer is before greeting them,” Kai said in English. His foster-father, George Miyagusuku, had tried his best to raise Kai and his brother bilingual, but Kai’s English had only really improved during the years he’d spent abroad with Lewis, David, and the other members of Red Shield. David and he had never completely seen eye-to-eye, but Lewis was an easier person to like, without a mean bone in his body.

Lewis was peering through his shades at the interior of the Omoro. “You managing to make ends meet?”

“Pretty much,” Kai lied. “What brings you here? Can I get you something?”

“No,” Lewis began, then started to rub his goateed chin. “Actually, do you still make the same ramen as your dad did?”

“I’ve been told mine’s better.” Kai swung his rag over his shoulder and walked behind the counter to begin preparation. “You’ll have to let me know if that’s true.”

Lewis sidled up to the bar and took a stool. As Kai began to fill his bowl, Lewis leaned in and said quietly, “Red Shield’s been trying to contact you.”

“I know.” Kai scowled and added broth. “I’ve told them the medical aid is all I need. Dad hated the payments he got for raising Saya, he said it made him feel dirty. It’s the same with me.”

“Well, that’s not what they want to contact you about _now_.”

Kai set the bowl down in front of Lewis. “What’s that mean?”

Lewis raised his chopsticks expertly and slurped a long mouthful of noodles. “Well, next time, why don’t ya answer an email?”

Kai sighed and smacked the counter. “Lewis, did you come here just to give me hints, or are you actually going to _tell_ me?”

“Calm down, Kai. Yes, I’m here to tell you, but ya can’t just cut off Red Shield like that. For better or for worse, if you’ve joined ’em they never completely let you go. Not that that’s a terrible thing. This generation’s Joel is a pretty decent guy, after all.”

“I never said I hated Red Shield, I just want Kanade and Hibiki to have as close to a normal life as they possibly can, and that’s not going to happen if I have a foreign agency constantly coming in and out of here.”

“Red Shield’s not gonna be foreign for much longer.”

Kai blinked. “What?”

“They’re buying the land when Futenma closes.”

“When Futen—you mean, never? America is never closing down their bases here, they’re building damn _resorts_ for their soldiers, why would they leave?”

“Pressure at home. New York in ’07 had a ripple effect, and military budgets are getting cut everywhere. A lot of people in America are wondering why we need so much ‘jungle training.’”

Kai ran his hands through his wild, sun-bleached hair. “I haven’t heard anything about this. I mean, Prime Ministers always promise they’ll get rid of the Futenma base, but it never happens.”

“Nothing’s been officially announced, but those of us with access to the right information,” here he tapped the side of his nose, “have seen the plans. Actually, they were going to sell it some shady company here in Japan, but Red Shield thought they could use the old facilities and keep most of the staff, make the transition be as smooth as possible.”

“Well, I hope they know what they’re getting themselves into. One foreign organization replacing another isn’t going to endear them to any of the locals.”

“They’re hoping to be a little more _responsive_ than their predecessors.”

It took Kai a moment to catch his choice of words. “Wait, ‘they’? Have you quit?”

Lewis shrugged and slurped down more ramen. “They don’t have much use for a man with my particular skills anymore. I was thinking of going freelance. Gotta be some people in this paranoid age willing to pay me for doing what I do best. In the meantime, though—”

“They want to offer me a job? I’m not interested.”

“I don’t know what they want from you. But they wanted you to know what they’re planning. _And_ that Julia and David are coming next month as soon as the transfer’s announced.”

Kai winced. He liked Julia well enough, and David _was_ friend, but it would be a lot harder to hide how he was struggling to keep things together with David’s withering glare around. “Are they staying permanently?”

“So far as I know. I hear they want their boy in that same school you’ve got the twins attending.”

“Do they want a letter of recommendation?”

Lewis grinned toothily. “Probably. But,” and he paused for a moment to drain the broth from his ramen, “My guess is they may offer you a job as well, since Red Shield will be in your backyard from now on.”

Kai muttered something foul in Japanese before continuing in English. “Look, I just _said_ I don’t want any help beyond the medical care the twins need. They go in once a week on Sundays for their blood transfusions, and Red Shield’s name makes the doctors not ask questions.”

“A job’s not help, Kai. You were in the organization for more than a year, they actually want you back. Nobody’s offering a handout.”

“Well, I happen to _like_ the restaurant. It’s hard work, yeah, but Dad loved this place and I’m keeping it open as long as I can. You wouldn’t believe how many people were thanking me for re-opening it after we returned to Japan. I’m not giving that up for a desk job!”

Lewis was about to reply when a tinkle of chimes by the door indicated another customer had arrived. They both stopped to look at the woman who’d just walked in and was now looking around the café curiously. The time for talking about the top-secret plans of international organizations was at an end, and so was Lewis’ bowl of ramen.

“Just think it over,” Lewis said as he pressed the money down on the counter. “And keep the change.”

Kai wanted to protest, but decided against it in front of a customer. She looked to be in her late twenties, dressed unusually well for the working-class part of town the Oromo was in. Her hair was straight and shoulder-length, framing a relatively pretty but somewhat tired face. He gestured to one of the seats and placed a menu in front of her. He took Lewis’ bowl and began to scrub it out, his back turned to the customer.

“Um, excuse me. Do you recommend anything?”

Kai stopped his washing and turned to face her. Her accent had startled him. “Are you from Tokyo?” he blurted out.

She looked embarrassed and Kai inwardly kicked himself. “Ah, sorry, that was rude. We’re not in any of the tourist guides, so we mostly get locals here.”

“Really?” she asked, her eyes edging towards the door through which Lewis had just departed.

“Well, Lewis is a friend of my dad’s. He was born in America, so we do get the occasional foreigner who knew him.”

“Oh.” Kai could see her gaze shifting to his hair.

He gave one strand a tug. “This? My hair just bleaches out in the sun. My dad’s _family_ was Okinawan, so I’m not really half.” And he was his _adopted_ father too, but there wasn’t any need to get into that. Kai cleared his throat and changed the subject to fend off any more questioning looks. “So, you wanted a recommendation? What are you hungry for? We have ramen, a little different from what’s in Tokyo, but if you want something familiar…”

His style of talking with customers was always the same mix of Japanese formal and American friendly that his father had cultivated. She seemed to be responding to it as well as any outsider might, a mix of confusion and amusement. “I cook Japanese food at home. I’ve been trying some Okinawan food wherever I go.”

“Well, the _sohki soba_ is about as authentically Okinawan as you can get.”

“Something lighter, maybe.”

“Well, there’s _champuru_ , of course, but maybe you’re sick of that by now…”

“Actually,” and she looked slightly abashed, “if I could just have something to drink?”

“Right! Well, if it’s Okinawan you want, we have pineapple, mango, _shikwasa_ …”

“ _Shikwasa_ would be lovely.”

Kai pulled out a glass, checked to make sure Kakimoto had washed it properly, and then got the _shikwasa_ juice from the refrigerator. “We fresh-squeeze it every morning,” he boasted as he poured.

The woman took the drink and sipped it, looking around the restaurant as she did. “It’s very quiet.”

“Our main rush is at noon and in the evening. Though I should warn you, it’s going to be a lot less quiet in just a bit when my nieces get back from school.”

“Nieces? You live with your brother or your sister?”

Kai winced inwardly but kept his customer service face going. “Uh, no, I’m raising them myself. Their parents died shortly after they were born. A car crash.” He’d told the lie so many times that it slipped off his lips without the slightest twinge of guilt. He _wished_ that was the real story behind Kanade and Hibiki’s parentage, and anyone who knew his family from before everything that had happened - well, they assumed he was lying to protect Saya’s reputation, since they were her spitting image.

He could sense either condolences or further questions coming from his customer, so Kai was relieved when he heard the squeal of the kindergarten bus coming to a stop by his corner. “Why, here they are now. You’ll get to meet them.”

The twins rushed into bar, Kanade slightly ahead of Hibiki, their backpacks bobbing up and down as they ran. “We’re back!” they chirped in unison.

“Welcome home,” Kai replied, as they dumped their backpacks unceremoniously by the door and clambered up onto the stools by the bar.

“Guess what we did in school!” Kanade said.

“Kana, I’ll talk to you about it when I don’t have a customer.”

His niece seemed to notice the woman at the bar for the first time. “Oh, nice to meet you! My name is Miyagusuku Kanade and this is my sister Hibiki.”

Hibiki bowed a little. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” the woman said warmly. Kai noticed that she actually seemed more relaxed talking to the girls than to him. She was smiling for the first time since she came into the bar. “My name is Aragaki Masako.”

“We’re both six and we go to the Inter… inter…” Kanade frowned, her brow knit in thought.

“The Naha International Association School,” said Hibiki.

“Yes, that,” Kanade nodded. “And this is Uncle Kai, and there’s also Katou and Kakimoto, and sometimes Mrs. Shimabukuro comes by to watch us…”

“Kana, I think our customer isn’t interested in that.”

“They’re fine,” she laughed. “I don’t have any children of my own, so…” she let that trail off awkwardly.

And that was how they met Masako. She listened intently as the girls told them both about their exciting day at school (“We collected FROGS!”), smiling and nodding at their enthusiasm. Kai was amazed at her patience at first, but she seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself. Masako interacted with the girls for almost an hour before she finally paid for her one glass of juice and said goodbye.

He’d expected that to be the last he ever saw of her. But a week later, around the same time, she showed up again, this time to sample the mango juice. A few days after that, she came once more, this time getting _champuru_ , which she only picked at. The girls loved having someone new to chatter away with, and by the third trip she’d brought string with her and begun teaching them cat’s cradle. It wasn’t long before Masako’s presence became an almost daily event, at least during the week.

Masako sometimes apologized for intruding. “I’m just a customer, you don’t have to give me any special treatment.”

Kai waved that aside. “Nonsense. _Ichariba choudee_ , as we say here.” When she gave him a confused look, he explained, “My nieces picked up Okinawan from the neighbor, but I only know all the expressions my dad used to spout. That one means ‘If you’ve met, you’re family.’ We’re friendlier around here than in the mainland.”

Kai found himself striking up conversation with her more and more. It made it difficult to evade questions about Kanade and Hibiki’s parents, especially with Kanade’s blue eyes. Kai had been able to answer honestly that their mother wasn’t Japanese before changing the subject again. Masako must have sensed that was an open wound, because she focused instead on questions about how the Omoro was run, where he’d gone to school, what it was like raising two girls alone. At first he’d been reluctant even to discuss that, but after a few weeks he found it a relief to be able to dump his concerns on her, all the difficulties and frustrations he faced a single father of two very rambunctious girls.

In their conversations, Kai also managed to learn more about her. Given that she was from Tokyo but had an Okinawan last name, he wasn’t surprised to find out she’d married a native who had studied on Honshu. They’d only moved back to Okinawa a year ago. If Kai was reluctant to talk about the twins’ parents, then Masako seemed unwilling to discuss her husband. Apparently he was rather wealthy.

About a month after his first visit, he was talking with Katou after hours, while the twins colored together on one of the tables. “I don’t know why she keeps coming here. We’re not exactly a high-end establishment, and we’re at least an hour from Naha by bus.”

Katou shrugged as he scrubbed out the fryer, and said the obvious: “Maybe she’s lonely.”

***

 

On a Saturday morning in late July, Masako’s husband sat across the breakfast table from her, engrossed in his new iPad. Whether he was reading the paper or sending emails, she didn’t know. Whatever it was, he hadn’t spoken a word to her since he’d sat down.

She’d made a traditional breakfast today, with fish and vegetables, which required her getting up an hour before he did. She’d turned on the news quietly and waited for him to trudge out of bed, where he’d peered at what she was preparing, given her a pat on the back, and without a word headed to the shower.

They ate most of their breakfast in silence, but as she finished her plate, Masako ventured to ask, “You said you didn’t need a lunch, are you sure about that?”

“Yes,” her husband replied. “Also, I won’t be home for dinner tonight. And I may be out late. I wouldn’t bother waiting up.”

Masako’s smile was strained. “Yes dear, thank you for telling me.”

He glanced up from his iPad briefly. “You’ll be all right. You’ve got tea ceremony today, right?”

“Flower arrangement.”

“Right. Are you enjoying that?”

“It’s fine. My teacher complimented me the other day.”

He gave a noncommittal noise and continued eating.

Masako fidgeted with her chopsticks for a moment. She’d wanted to broach a topic with him for a while, but she was afraid she knew the answer already. This was, though, the first time he’d wanted to talk about her hobbies in a while, so she decided to take the risk. “I was wondering…The tea ceremony and flower arrangement are only once a week. I’ve been… I’ve been practicing some arts and crafts I found online. I showed them to my flower arrangement group the other day, and a few of the women were interested in them.”

“That’s nice.”

“No, what… what I mean to say is, I think I could sell them. Possibly. There are places on the internet where you can leave photos and people will order things…”

Her husband sighed and set his iPad to the side. “Why do you need to _sell_ them, Masako? I make more than enough money for the both of us. I’m sure the ladies in your clubs would love to have them as gifts.”

 _Because I want money of my own. Because I actually did get a degree in office management and I know how to keep invoices._ _Because I want to feel_ useful _for once._ But out loud all she said was, “Yes, you’re right. I don’t need to sell them, I suppose.”

He smiled and wiped his mouth. “I’m glad you’re keeping busy. It will keep your mind off things.” He even walked over and gave her a peck on the cheek before picking up his briefcase and leaving without another word.

Masako sat alone at the table for a moment, trying to quiet the tumble of thoughts in her head and frustrated knot in her stomach. She finally looked up at the clock and saw that it was only 7:30. Her flower arrangement group wouldn’t meet until 10:00. They were all wives of wealthy men like her, and afterwards they would always go out for some expensive lunch and talk about Korean dramas and various bits of gossip. Then afterwards they’d go home and take naps or watch TV or go to an exercise class. Masako, as a Tokyoite, had taken to wandering the city, seeing the various UNESCO sites around Naha. When she tired of the capital, she started to take buses to various other parts of the island, from the Peace Park up to Churaumi Ocean Park. It was during her visit to Okinawa City that she’d discovered the Omoro.

All of a sudden, she knew she didn’t want to spend her Saturday with women who were content to talk about the lives of other people rather than live their own.

Masako rode the buses as far as they would take her, then walked to the café. It was still early enough that a small breakfast crowd was gathered. From the exhausted looks on their faces, she guessed they must be night shift workers, and that this was dinner for them. Kai was serving dishes, and when he saw her he looked surprised. “I wasn’t expecting you today. The girls are still sleeping.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t have much to do so I thought I’d see if you needed any help.”

She could see Kai’s hesitation, but he finally said, “I know it might be asking a bit much, but could you help the twins get ready? The apartment’s above the store, you should see the staircase outside.”

“That’s no problem at all,” she replied and with a slight bow to him and his staff, she followed his directions up to their apartment.

It was a small place, less than a quarter the size of her home. The entrance where she slipped off her shoes led to a kitchen, with a television and a Western-style table. To her left were two sliding doors. The first one she tried led to a small room with a futon rolled in the corner. It was empty, so it must have been Kai’s. In the next she found Kanade and Hibiki sleeping together, their bodies somewhat overlapping. Masako almost didn’t want to wake them, they looked so peaceful, but she finally crouched down and shook their shoulders slightly. “Good morning.”

They both opened their eyes, reluctantly at first, but when they recognized her, they both sat up right away. “Ms. Masako!”

“I came a little early today. Why don’t we get ready?”

She helped them change into their clothes and wash their faces, and the twins pointed her to the breakfast Kai had left in the refrigerator. As Masako watched them eat, she asked them what they planned to do today.

“Hmm,” Hibiki pondered in her serious way. “Uncle Kai is always busy on Saturdays, we usually play in the park with Ichiro and Takumi and Manami.”

“But you’re here today, Ms. Masako, so we should do something special!” Kanade added.

“I’d love to, but we’ll have to ask your uncle first.”

Kai gave his approval immediately, and somehow it made Masako incredibly happy to know he trusted her that much. The girls both declared that they wanted to go to Children’s World, which Masako had never been to. She understood immediately why it was their favorite place, as it had a zoo and a children’s museum called the Wonder Museum. They ate lunch at the park and caught one of the performances in the afternoon. The twins were so excited, with Kanade usually leading and a dutiful Hibiki following not far behind, that Masako had trouble keeping up with them.

On the ride home in the late afternoon, however, they both fell asleep on the short bus ride, leaning against her. It was wonderful, so much so it almost hurt.

She decided to cap her perfect day by staying for dinner with them. The three of them took their food up to apartment, talking about everything they’d done and watching anime on TV. They’d both informed her that their favorite show was _Pretty Cure_ and did she know that in _Suite Precure_ the Precure girls were named Hibiki and Kanade?

By eight o’clock they were starting to nod off again, and since Kai showed no sign of coming up yet, she helped them into their pajamas and put them to bed. Once they were asleep, she carefully closed the door to their room and went down to the restaurant to find their uncle.

He was cleaning up the bar, and she could see from the slump of his shoulders and the crease in his forehead that it had been a long and busy day. Seeing him made her realize she was more than a little exhausted herself. Masako sat at the bar to rest her feet and told him the twins were asleep.

“Really? Thank you so much. You have no idea how helpful it was to have someone to watch them today. I can only take so much time off…”

“It’s my pleasure. They’re both lovely little girls. You should be proud of having raised them.”

Kai smiled, though it didn’t quite extend to the frown in his brows. “You’re good with them, too. You’ll make a good mom someday.”

Masako hesitated, but finally said, “I can’t have children.” She gulped more obviously than she’d intended. “I found it out a few years ago. I…I married young and we wanted to start a family, but…”

“Oh.” Kai’s smile faded and his frown resumed. “I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“It’s all right. I like it here, I… I have nothing to do, you see. My husband, he doesn’t want his wife working, it would shame him in front of his coworkers. I try to have hobbies, but I still have so much time left over when they’re done.”

“Can’t you… I don’t know, travel? With your husband, I mean.”

Masako laughed coldly. “No, we… we don’t do that. I don’t, anyway. He travels. Just… not with me.”

The silence that followed was very uncomfortable. She couldn’t meet his eye, instead staring at her ring, turning it slightly around her finger.

“I didn’t mean to bring up… I know it’s none of my business…”

“Should I leave him?”

It was only when she saw the slack-jawed look on Kai’s face that she realized she’d even said it out loud. Her face grew warm and she quickly stood up. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, I’ll… I need to get going.”

She didn’t wait for Kai to reply as she sped out the door.

 

***

 

Kai didn’t sleep very well that night. He spent most of it staring at the ceiling, a train of thoughts running off the rails in his head. A lot of things about Masako suddenly made a great deal of sense. Why she loved being with the twins so much. Why she never wanted to talk about her husband. _He has a mistress, huh? What a scumbag…_

His first thought had been to tell her yes, of course you should leave him, he sounds like an asshole.

But he couldn’t say it, because he knew it was at least partly selfish. If Masako wasn’t married, she could spend more time with the girls. She could maybe even help around the restaurant. She wanted to work, if there was another income around he might not have to go begging to Red Shield someday. He could see her every day, she could even move in…

He rubbed his eyes and tried in vain to keep _that_ thought out of his mind.


	4. Aunt Masako

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I finally infodump most of what you need to know from the TV series.

[Late July, 2013]

It was ten o’clock, and Masako was sitting on her sofa staring at the television screen. It has been off for an hour, since she’s finished distractedly watching the latest Korean drama that all her club members had been raving about. Now she simply sat in the silent apartment, listening to their heirloom grandfather clock clicking way the minutes, one by one.

Her eyes meandered about the open room. The carpet and walls here were white, making it bright and creating a feel of more space than the already large apartment contained. For now she had the lights dimmed. The luminousness tonight made her think of their hospital visit two years ago, the sterile room and its blinding electric lights, and the news from their doctor.

Had everything gone wrong then? Or had it simply finalized what had been happening for some time already?

Her husband’s dinner was by now in the refrigerator covered in plastic. Masako wasn’t entirely sure why she continued to make it for him. Six days of the week he was out at least this late, or never came home at all. Sometimes he told her ahead of time that he’d be gone. Usually not. The exception was Sunday, to watch _Sazae-san_ the way they both had since they were children. For her own part, Masako had lost all her interest the animated story of the happy Fugita family, but she still watched it, because she could do it with him.

Why did she make the dinner? Why did she wait up for him, falling asleep on the couch when he wouldn’t return? Why did she watch the clock as in marked the moments, second after second? Why did she still feel so lost when she was alone late like this? Why did she still _care_?

He wasn’t a terrible husband. He provided for her, much better than most men could. He never asked what she did during the day. He never hit her, never insulted her, never complained. Yes, there was the mistress, but many affluent businessmen had mistresses; a woman knew that could happen when she married one.

But he was never _there_.

This was his only real sin, and it could only hurt if she still loved him. His absence was only meaningful because she still longed for him to be with her. By herself, in an empty apartment, Masako felt as though there was another person present with her, a blank space in his shape that haunted her as the clocked ticked on and on.

 _Should I leave him?_   Why had she even asked that question of Kai last Saturday? it was mortifying. She hadn’t had the courage to go back since then. When she couldn’t even begin to answer the question herself, how could she imagine that a stranger could give her any advice?

If she was honest, Kai was a little more than a stranger by now, perhaps even a friend. He was straightforward and sympathetic, if rough around the edges. No matter how much she reminded herself that they weren’t _hers_ , she’d come to genuinely love Kanade and Hibiki. Somehow the Miyagusuku family had assembled a happiness in that little restaurant that had gone missing in her home a long time ago.

Masako looked up at the clock again. It was 10:30 now, and she could feel herself getting sleepy. She decided that for once, she wasn’t going to fall asleep on the couch. She wasn’t going to care whether he came home or not. If he wasn’t going to be there, then neither was she.

She woke the next day to find she’d overslept, and her husband making himself breakfast in the kitchen, munching on his food as he struggled with his tie. Masako stepped in and finished it for him, and he graced her with a brief smile before wordlessly picking up his briefcase and heading for the door. Masako dressed and got ready, listening to the NHK morning news over a light plate of fruit and toast. The same old information; China kept launching probes into space, Croatia was joining the EU – what was left of it, anyway – but her attention was elsewhere. It didn’t matter if things might be awkward around Kai for a while, she couldn’t abandon Kanade and Hibiki. It was Saturday again, so the twins wouldn’t have school. She’d decided that she’d spend the whole day with them again, if Kai would let her.

She took the bus to Koza and walked to the Omoro. To her astonishment, the sign in the window said “Closed,” and Masako could see Kanade and Hibiki in the playground across from the café. There was a third child with them, a blond-haired boy, perhaps from their school. She approached them, and when the twins saw her they dropped whatever game they had been playing and rushed to see her.

“Aunt Masako, there’s someone we want you to meet!” Hibiki tugged at her hand and pointed at the new boy.

“She’s too young to be ‘aunt,’” Kanade corrected her sister. “She’s just Ms. Masako.”

Hibiki hesitated, abashed, and Masako patted her on the head. “You can call me ‘aunt’ if you like, Hibi.” As someone who would never be called “mom,” it had a pleasant ring to it. “Who is your new friend?”

“He’s George,” Kanade explained, and, grabbing the boy roughly by the arm, she dragged him over to present him to Masako. “I like him. He doesn’t speak much Japanese, though.”

Aware that they were talking about him, George frowned and said, haltingly, “Ha…Hajimay …masheetay.”

“ _Hajimemashite_ ,” Masako replied and leaned over to extend him a hand. He shook it and smiled. He was a very handsome little boy, maybe a year or so younger than the twins. She ventured her own best attempt at English: “Naisu tuu meechuu.”

George giggled at her bad pronunciation, but it seemed to set him at ease.

Masako straightened and asked the girls, “Where is your uncle?”

“Inside,” Hibiki answered. “But he’s busy, so we’re playing out here.”

“Then maybe I shouldn’t disturb him,” Masako thought out loud softly.

“Oh no!” said Kanade. “You should go see him, he’ll like that.” She elbowed Hibiki slightly and her sister giggled.

Masako hesitated. She didn’t want to interrupt Kai from anything important, but she thought she should let him know she was there and keeping an eye on the children. Besides, it would only take a moment to say hello…

She bowed to the girls and their new friend before crossing the street to cautiously enter the restaurant. “I don’t mean to intrude…” and then Masako stopped. She’d never come in when the store wasn’t open. The stools were still stacked in a corner, and the chairs up on the unoccupied tables. Kai was sitting in at the one table still set up with three other people. One she recognized as the same black man he’d been talking with when they first met. The other two were new, a man and a woman. They were both blond, and Masako immediately guessed they were George’s parents. The woman was perhaps forty, with long hair pulled back from her face, fashionable glasses, but otherwise sensible and professional clothing. She wasn’t exactly plain, but she paled in comparison to her husband, who, though maybe ten years older, looked as though he could have a role in movies. Masako, who had barely bothered with makeup that day, felt suddenly out of place.

What’s more, from the way Kai’s brow was furrowed, the four of them had clearly been deep in conversation. Masako wanted to shrink to the size of a mouse and scurry out of the café when in unison they all turned to look at her.

“I… I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she stammered, and turned to go, but not before she saw Kai’s face light up and he stood to stop her.

“No, it’s fine,” he assured her. “We could stand the interruption.” He took her lightly by the elbow and brought her over to the table. Kai then said something in English; since she heard her name, she assumed he was introducing her. She bowed slightly, and saw the three were smiling at her, though each smile seemed a little different. The blond man seemed almost dismayed, his wife pleased, and the black man thoroughly amused.

“And, um, Masako, these are some old friends of mine. You’ve met Lewis before,” he gestured to the black man. “And the other two are David and Julia Silverstein. They’re with the same company that’s moving to Okinawa.”

“Is George their son?”

“Heh, so you met him already. Yeah, he’s a nice kid.”

“Well, I won’t keep you from…whatever you were discussing. I just wanted to let you know I was here. I was thinking I could spend another day with the twins, to keep them out of your way…”

Kai fidgeted. “Um, okay. If you don’t have anything else to do, sure. They loved last Saturday. I mean, um, they like you, and…”

As he grew increasingly flustered, the woman named Julia covered her mouth but her shoulders betrayed that she was laughing. Masako wasn’t sure why this made her uncomfortable, but she decided to just smile, bow, and beat a hasty retreat outside.

“See?” Kanade chirped as she returned. “I bet he was happy to see you, right?”

Masako blushed, wondered why, and decided it was delayed embarrassment from how she’d humiliated herself inside. “Well, I have the whole day. What would you three like to do?”

 

***

 

Julia was still smiling when Kai returned to his seat. “She’s very nice, Kai.”

“Yeah, and she’s good with the twins, so it’s nice to have her around.”

David frowned and folded his arms across his chest. “I saw a ring. She’s _married_.”

“So?” said Kai defensively. “I’m not allowed to have married friends?”

Julia laughed as she looked at the two men glaring across the table. Was there anything that Kai and David couldn’t find an excuse to fight over? “Calm down, you two. Kai’s allowed to make whatever _friends_ he might like.”

“She _is_ a friend! I don’t know what you’re getting at—”

“You were always pretty clueless when it came to girls,” Lewis quipped and elbowed Kai.

“Clueless about _what_?”

David sighed in frustration. “Look, can we get back to the important business? If Kai wants to be involved with a married woman, it’s his prerogative.”

“I’m not… what…” Kai’s mouth flapped open and shut like a fish. “That’s just…”

Julia gave a pointed look at her husband. _Dear, I love you, but you still need to learn some tact._ Or maybe his aches were just acting up again…

“No, I’m not _involved_ with her. I’m not, really,” Kai continued. “I… I don’t have the time for it, not with the twins. I mean, taking care of them is a full-time job on top of my full-time job, and sure, another set of hands would be nice, and Masako is awfully good with them, and I _like_ her…” Kai stopped babbling abruptly, leaving his mouth hanging open. A flush spread up his face, and he cleared his throat. “So, where were we before?”

Lewis guffawed and Julia laughed, and David rolled his eyes. “The relocation,” her husband grumbled. “And you taking a job with us or not?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, not happening. Lewis should’ve told you already.”

“I did. Julia thinks she can convince you.”

Julia pulled out a paper form. “This is an application, but it’s just a formality in this case. We want you to be one of our local liaisons. We’re new, and need some native Okinawans to help with our public relations. We especially want them to understand that we’re _not_ paramilitary anymore. This is going to be strictly a research facility, and we hope to bring a lot of money to the prefecture.”

“Okay, as your native Okinawan, let me explain to you two things. First, that’s the worst job ever. You are a bunch of Europeans and Americans replacing Americans. I may like you guys, but to everyone else, you’re just outsiders replacing outsiders, keeping land out of Okinawan hands.”

“We’ll be using less than the base did.”

“Right, and hopefully you won’t have jets flying in low over residential areas, which is the main reason we all despise Futenma. But you are basically asking _me_ to defend something that everyone’s going to hate.”

“Kai, if the bases leave without anything to replace them, we all know what it would do to the economy here. We’re trying to provide a positive alternative to a military occupation.”

“And I believe that. I just don’t think I have the patience to deal with angry people.”

“He has a point, Julia,” said David. “Kai’s not always the most level-headed young man when he’s in a confrontation.”

“That brings me to point number two, which is that I’m not leaving the Omoro. It’s my dad’s place, he built it from the ground up, I reopened it after he and Riku died. This is the girls’ home. Saya’s here, for crying out loud, have you forgotten about that?”

“We won’t be that far away, Kai. Heavens, David and I plan to live here in Okinawa City, since it’s cheaper than Naha.”

“And it’s not exactly as though this restaurant is raking in profits,” David growled. “I see at least a dozen things in need of repair just from here.” He rubbed his stomach gingerly, and Julia knew it was a bad day. She placed her hand on his arm gently.

“Kai, we know this place means a lot to you, but please consider the offer. You won’t have to deal directly with people if you don’t want to, but Kanade and Hibiki need to have financial security.”

Kai scowled and ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll think about it. But don’t just assume I’m in.”

“We won’t,” Julia assured him as they all stood up to leave. As Lewis and David walked out through the door, she turned to Kai again. “And I may be misreading things entirely, but I think you really _could_ use an extra set of hands around here.”

“I can’t afford any more staff.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She peered out through the door to see Masako holding hands with the twins as they waved goodbye to George. “Does she know about them? About what they are?”

“Of course not.”

“I think you should tell her, Kai. She deserves to know.”

 

***

 

When Kai has asked for her phone number, Masako had been more than a little surprised. She gave it to him, and regretted it almost immediately, as she fretted over the ways this could go wrong. Well, maybe not ways, but certainly _way_ ; what if he called when her husband was home? She hardly ever used her cell phone for calls, just the internet, and while she wasn’t sure whether her husband would have bothered to notice that fact, she didn’t look forward to possibly lying to him about who was calling her. Spending most of her days in Okinawa City with a lower-class family would certainly rank among his “think of my reputation” complaints.

Fortunately the first time he called her, on a late August Tuesday, her husband had just left for work and she was conveniently alone. Seeing Kai’s name on the screen, she panicked slightly, making sure her front door was locked before answering. “Hello?”

“Hi, Masako. Um, I was wondering if you were up to coming to Koza today.”

“I’d been thinking about coming this afternoon again, yes.”

“Well, it’s still summer break, so the girls have the whole day off. We’re taking a short trip this morning, and if you were able to get here…”

Masako quickly pulled up her bus schedule on her phone. “I can be there in an hour if I hurry.”

“Great. Um, I suppose I’ll see you then. Call me if something happens.”

Nothing did, and she arrived to the Omoro slightly out of breath. Kanade and Hibiki were already waiting out front, hats firmly in place to block the summer sun. They both ran to hug her legs as she approached. Kai emerged not long after, baseball cap pulled down low. “Oh. I should’ve mentioned we were going for a walk outside. Will you be okay without a hat?”

“I guess I’ll have to be.”

Kai led them down an alley behind the Omoro to a beat-up sedan that Masako had never seen before. “Gas is expensive,” Kai explained as the girls climbed inside the backseat. “We avoid driving whenever we can.”

With Kai behind the wheel and Masako in the front passenger seat, they took off through the streets of Koza. When they were a few blocks away, Masako asked “Where are we going, by the way?”

“We’re going to see Aunt Saya!” Kanade piped up from the back.

She knew Kai’s father was George Miyagusuku, and he’d mentioned once that his brother’s name had been Riku, but Saya was a new name to Masako. She said as much.

“Well, it’s a little complicated. When I was a junior in high school, the same year I had to drop the baseball team for my injury, my dad took in a girl about my age named Otonashi Saya. It was temporary, just a few years, but I think of her as my sister, after all we went through together.”

“We go see her every year,” Kanade explained from the back. She pointed to bouquets on the back floor. “That’s why we bring flowers.”

It wasn’t far to the edge of the city. They reached a high green slope and Kai parked the car, letting them all out. As they rounded the hill, Masako recognized for the first time where they were.

Okinawan cemeteries were different from those on the mainland. Most families kept their relatives bones and ashes on their own land, and those that didn’t buried their dead in tombs like the one that rose from the hill up ahead. Masako had to stop a moment to recover from the shock, then hurry ahead to catch up with the Miyagusukus. _His father, his brother, his sister-in-law… how many people in Kai’s family were dead?_

The twins had run ahead to their family tomb and were pointing excitedly at a single bluish-purple rose that lay at the base of the stone door. “Look, Uncle Kai! Hagi already came and left a flower!”

“Will we ever get to meet him?” Hibiki asked.

“I dunno, he’s a strange guy. I’m sure he’ll want to stay and say hello someday.”

Masako was bewildered by how cheerful they seemed to be. “How… how did she die?”

“Die?” said Kanade. “Aunt Saya’s not dead, she’s just sleeping!”

Hibiki jabbed her. “Shh!”

“Oh, it’s Ms. Masako, we can tell _her_.”

Kai cleared his throat sternly. “Kana, Hibi, why don’t you go play down by the beach, okay?”

“Why?” they whined in chorus.

“Ms. Masako and I have some things to talk about alone.” Kai’s voice was firm enough that, though they frowned unhappily at first, the twins did as they were asked.

Once the girls’ retreating forms were well out of ears’ shot, Kai heaved a great sigh and sat down on the steps leading to the tomb. Masako joined him, carefully brushing an area as clean as she could. “Kai, I don’t mean to overstep my boundaries, but I don’t think it’s a good thing to tell children that a dead relative is ‘just sleeping’. Children need to cope with these things. I remember when my grandmother died, my parents—”

“I told them the truth. She isn’t dead. She’s sleeping. I took her here myself, almost six years ago now. I carried her piggyback as she started to doze off for the last time. She was heavy, but I was her last family, so I wanted to be the one to bring her here.”

“But that would mean… she’s been sleeping for six years? How is that even possible?”

Kai gazed out at the ocean for a while before taking a deep breath. “I’ve been running over and over through my head where to even begin explaining all this. I don’t think any way is really _good_ , so I guess I might as well begin by asking…how much do you know about the bombings in New York back in 2007?”

“Only what was on the news. It was all a little incredible. The military bombed the Metropolitan Opera House. Apparently they were trying to cover up some experiment that went horribly wrong and turned people into…into monsters. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the hearings or if the UN hadn’t confirmed it. I’m not sure I believe it even with all of that.”

“Do you remember anything about the monsters?”

Masako’s brow furrowed as she tried to remember. “I think they were called…what was it? Something to do with bats…”

“Chiropterans.”

“Yes! Now I remember. Apparently they were made using the genes from these two girls who looked normal, but really were almost like vampires.”

Kai nodded. “Right. They’re called queens. There’s always two of them in every generation. You may have watched the hearings, but probably not that closely, or you would have recognized Julia as one of the scientists who testified at them. She and David are part of a group called ‘Red Shield’ that has been monitoring the queens -- the Chiropterans -- for more than a century. I didn’t find it out until shortly before his death, but so was my dad.” He looked over his shoulder towards the tomb behind them. “And in 2005, one of the queens, the one who was working with Red Shield, woke up after a long hibernation. My dad was the one they trusted to take care of her.”

It took a moment, but Masako realized what he was saying. “Saya… was one of the two queens?”

“Yeah. I had no idea at first. To me she was just this weird girl my dad brought home one day. She couldn’t even talk at first, but eventually she became part of the family. I guess things would’ve been just fine like that.

“But she wasn’t the only queen. She had a sister. I don’t know everything about what happened, but apparently they did experiments on her when she was young, which was all the way back in the 1800s. It messed her up to the point that she was seriously disturbed. She and her minions were the ones who gave the technology to the US government to even run the experiments. She was called Diva.” Kai spat the name out as if it was poison. “Thanks to her group, my father was killed, and Riku…” He paused for another deep breath. “Anyway, Saya had spent practically her whole life trying to track Diva down, every time she woke up from her hibernations. She finally managed to kill her last time, right before the Met was bombed. So that’s the end of that.

“But before Diva died, she had children of her own.”

When Kai went silent, Masako waited for him to continue, only to have the pieces of his story begin to fall into place in her mind. Six years ago… always two in every generation…

“You can’t mean...”

“Yes.”

“...Do they _know_?”

“They know they’re special. Every Sunday morning I close the shop and we go to the hospital to get them transfusions. They eat food but it’s really blood they need to survive, you see. They know they’re not supposed to tell anyone either. And they know their mom and their aunt were special like them too, and that’s why Saya is just sleeping. She’ll wake up in, I dunno, twenty, twenty-five years.”

“So…” Masako was still trying to process everything. “So you’re not really their uncle. Not by blood, anyway. They’re the daughters of the sister of someone who lived with you for a while.”

“No, they’re my nieces.” Kai’s hands balled into fists and his face went grim. “See, queens can’t reproduce with just anyone. They can create these… servants, called Chevalier, out of men who die. And it’s only with their sister’s Chevalier that they’ll have children. Hagi – the one who left the flowers? – he’s Saya’s Chevalier. And… so was my _younger_ brother, Riku. He was thirteen, she did it to save his life, but… maybe it would have been better if she’s let him stay dead.”

“So Diva… she seduced him, and…”

“You don’t _seduce_ a thirteen-year old,” Kai snapped. “And when she was done with him, she killed him.” He let out a deep breath and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “I haven’t told Kanade and Hibiki that part yet, obviously.”

The mix of anger and grief in Kai’s voice and face was enough to chase whatever doubts she had about his story straight out of Masako’s mind. It all seemed impossible, unreal. But you couldn’t fake that kind of emotion. In a strange way it made sense, too. The number of deaths in his family, his friendships with strange foreigners, the reluctance to talk about the twins’ parents. This was Kai’s great secret that they’d been dancing around in every conversation.

It made infertility and a cheating husband seem petty by comparison.

Masako could feel tears coming in spite of her best efforts. “Why are you telling me all of this?” she managed to ask through a tightening throat. “Why… why are you trusting me with these… secrets? We’ve only known each other a few months, why—”

“Because in just a few months you’ve become part of our lives. Because the girls love you, because I hate lying to you. And because you _should_ leave your husband.”

Kai was looking at her now with an intensely serious face. Masako permitted herself to meet his gaze and found she couldn’t break it. She could barely breathe and her heart was pounding. And then he carefully set his hand over hers on the bench and she had to bite back a sob.

Really, she supposed that she’d known this for a while. She just hadn’t wanted to admit it. She adjusted so that they were holding hands, and Kai laced his fingers through hers.

 

***

 

Aragaki Sousuke didn’t take the news very well. Masako had sat him down at the table on _Sazae-san_ night and set her wedding band down between them, told him there was someone else, and that she wasn’t coming back. It was almost a relief to see Sousuke infuriated after he’d been so cold for so long. He didn’t strike her, but she could tell he was tempted to. She was also glad she’d already moved most of her things to Omoro, since he threw her coat at her and told her to get out.

When her parents found out that she’d left her husband, and for a working class man with two children, they begged her to change her mind. When she refused, they disowned her. At first, Sousuke wouldn’t turn in the divorce papers she’d left behind, but eventually the shame of realizing his wife was living with another man was enough to make him give in.

It worked out well enough for everyone. After the mandatory six month waiting period, she and Kai married and she became Hibiki and Kanade’s aunt. Kai felt no shame in letting his wife work, and the extra money from her online handicrafts sales let them keep the Omoro open. The Silversteins were disappointed that Kai turned down their job offer, but glad to see him happily settled in with a wife.

Red Shield moved to Okinawa. Predictably it was despised at first, but as the decades rolled on it became a much-preferred substitute for the departing bases, as Julia had hoped. George went to the same schools that Kanade and Hibiki, Masako worked on her English and became a member of the Koza Community Council, Kai continued running his father’s restaurant, barely staying in the black.

It was not the life she’d imagined for herself, but, to her surprise, it made her perfectly happy.


	5. Exobiology

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look who got a sudden rush of inspiration the other day!
> 
> This is the last bit of truly vital info, and you should mostly be caught up on most of the background if you haven't seen the series. Alsomy, last new character for at least a few chapters...

                [August, 2035]

Marcus Bolser was a bit stunned by the reception hall of Red Shield Research Association’s headquarters. It was a vast three-story tall atrium, walls and floors in polished white, illumined entirely by the reflection and refraction of the summer sunlight. In carefully placed box gardens, tropical plants (undoubtedly bioneered on site) bloomed in abundance. The central desk was staffed by half a dozen receptionists who stood in front of a massive screen carrying images of the latest work at RSRA.

Well, not _all_ of the latest work. Not the work that Dr. Bolser was here for.

Marcus looked around the hall, wishing he had a pair of shades, trying in vain to find George Silverstein, who’d agreed to meet him here. It wasn’t that the hall was particularly crowded; the main group of people was a class of local middle school students, accompanied by their teacher and a guide. They made enough noise to fill the atrium, but they didn’t obstruct his view.

No, the problem was that Dr. Silverstein wasn’t _here_ , in spite of their agreement. Marcus checked the time yet again before decided he’d been waiting patiently long enough. He approached the desk, and a young woman (local, like all the staff, apparently) turned from her console to smile at him.

“Um, do you speak English?”

“Yes,” she replied, though it was heavily accented. “And if there is any other language you prefer, I can use our translation programs.”

“Right.” Marcus cleared his throat. “Well, if you could tell me where Dr. George Silverstein is? I had an appointment to meet him here twenty minutes ago, and I’m afraid I have no way to contact him.” RSRA seemed to be on a closed network of some kind; he hadn’t been able to use wireless since entering the grounds.

She poked at her screen for a while before telling him, “Dr. Silverstein seems to be in room B-235. I can send a summons if you want, or guide you there. It’s in a public area, so we won’t need security clearance, just a guest sign-in.”

“No need to summon him, I think. I’ll just, uh, well, how do you guide me?”

She reached under the desk and pulled out a set of specs. “These are formatted for voice commands. Now, if you could sign our guest registry…?”

Marcus placed his palm on the tablet she presented, then faced into it for a retinal scan. A green light glowed as the tablet presented his name, date of birth, nationality, and so forth. Sort of scary how easy it was to find the basics of one’s life story, really.

He thanked her, then donned the specs. Clearing his throat again (something in the air was affecting his allergies), Marcus asked slowly and clearly, “Where is Dr. George Silverstein?”

A golden line instantly appeared, superimposed along the floor like some yellow brick road, leading the way to B-235. _Where is Dr. Marcus Bolser? In way out of his depth…_

As he followed the virtual path through the facilities, captions occasionally popped up identifying the various rooms and exhibits he was passing by. It was annoying, which was the main reason that Marcus generally avoided specs, even when they’d been all the rage ten years ago. He could tell well enough with the virtual information that the front building he was in, building A, was primarily the educational and information area. There were dioramas and screens and viewing centers, not to mention several more clusters of students guided by their teachers, all of them with their phones out capturing photos. Some stereotypes were apparently true.

Marcus thought it was nice, actually, that they were trying to do outreach and education with the community. Most companies would have just leached everything out of the area and not cared. His cynical side considered the possibility that it was all just PR, the RSRA trying to make nice with the locals so that it wouldn’t be protested like the bases were. After all, most of the scientists here weren’t natives. The better angels of his nature, however, saw the excited way the children and teenagers seemed to be really getting into science and decided that maybe PR could have positive side effects. Okinawa obviously needed the money; on his cab ride over, most of the cars he’d seen were still manually driven, even though the roads had fully automated potential.

The path led him to a long glass corridor leading to building B. Marcus knew from maps that the RSRA’s headquarters was a sprawling complex of buildings connected by a maze of these corridors. While he assumed there had to maintenance access for the various bots working here, only the front building, at the reception hall, had a visible entrance for human visitors. It was warm under the arch in spite of the air conditioning pumping through the building, and he was glad when he emerged on the other side.

Building B, from the popups, seemed to be more administrative, full of various offices and meeting rooms. Very serious looking people hardly gave him a glance as he walked past their open doors or brushed their shoulders walking by.

He was led up a flight of stairs and down a hallway to a relatively large open area in the far corner of the building. The walls were mostly window, with benches running along them. Tables and chairs were scattered about the room, and pleasant ambient music was playing. Various staff members seemed to be finishing lunch, reading on their pads and tablets, or chatting. Marcus peered around and saw the path terminate at one of the tables. George Silverstein was sitting with a young woman, maybe in her early twenties. They looked rather deep in conversation about something, and he felt a little strange interrupting.

“Ahem. Dr. Silverstein?”

George looked up and his eyes widened. “Dr. Bolser!” He glanced at his tablet’s display and winced. “I am _so_ sorry, I lost complete track of the time.”

“Oh, it’s, um, it’s all right. I got to see a bit of the place, I suppose.”

The young woman stood up and shouldered her purse. “I’ll let you two talk.”

“Kana—” George began, rising slightly as if to stop her, but she was already quickly walking down the hall. He sighed and gestured to one of the chairs. “Have a seat, please. I’m really sorry about keeping you waiting.”

“It wasn’t really, uh, you know, a problem.” He sat down and removed his specs with some relief. “I don’t know if you’d rather talk here or someplace more, maybe, private? Do you even have offices here?”

George frowned a little. “So we’re skipping formalities and going straight to talking data?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I, uh, I’m not the best when it comes to socializing and small talk. I suppose I should maybe say, I don’t know, that I loved your talk at Seattle? I couldn’t come, had conflicts, but somebody put it up online and I have to say, you know, you’re very good at bringing this down to a level the public can understand. That’s, well, that’s really a gift.”

“Thanks. I’m actually quite amazed that you’ve come all the way out there. Most of the people who are interested in talking about my work settle on teleconference.”

“Well, actually, I’ve sort of, um, applied to work here, on the project, with you. My security clearance is still processing, but I try to be hopeful. Besides, it’s nice to get away from Yale. Not the loveliest campus.”

“Okinawa is definitely more pleasant than Seattle, too. Though I haven’t been outside in the last few days…”

“I don’t know if you wanted to talk about, how d’you say, more confidential things or not, but I know I have questions. So…”

 

***

 

George’s office had his name on it, but as he explained to Dr. Bolser, “Only because everything’s digital here. I think my place in Seattle had a sticky-note over the plaque. Sorry about the mess, but all my stuff arrived yesterday afternoon…”

Inside the small space was cluttered with unopened cardboard boxes and they had to weave their way through to chairs. George wasn’t much embarrassed by the disorder, but he _was_ still a little baffled by Dr. Bolser.

He looked just like the photos that George had seen: short height, sharp features, thin, a dark complexion and an aquiline nose hinting at a mixed ethnic heritage. The problem was the way he spoke. In every article he’d read by the man he was incredibly eloquent and precise, able to offer good arguments for the incredible hypotheses he presented. But ever since he’d arrived, Bolser had been fidgeting and hesitating. If it weren’t for the reliability of Red Shield’s identity authentication, he’d suspect the man sitting in front of him was a fraud.

But as the door closed behind them, Marcus suddenly calmed and broke into a confident, almost rehearsed speech. “I know you’re not completely convinced on my exobiological thesis, but I want to assure you that I’m not either. I’m not a fanatic, I know the limitations of my field. We’re relatively new, but we _are_ based on hard data. We study extremophiles here on earth, postulate different chemistry combinations, determine which planets are good candidates for searching for life. We accurately predicted what the organisms on Titan would look like, and—”

“And that’s why people actually listen when you speculate wildly,” George interrupted. “Look, believe me: I appreciate what it’s like to be working in a strange area of research. I admit that I’m… skeptical of some exobiology. I mean, when most of your claims aren’t even falsifiable…”

Bolser raised a hand. “I know. And I _know_ that…that my own hypothesis is still very preliminary.” He fumbled for a moment, his eyes trailing off to the ceiling, before suddenly resuming his speech. “I believe that with further research into the genealogical lineages of the queens, we might be able to find an area of origin, and if there was a significant impact crater in the right place and timeframe, it could serve as strong circumstantial evidence for my theory. That is still a long ways off, and it’s not what I want to talk with you about here anyway.

“I may officially be an exobiologist, but most of us start out studying extremophiles, and there isn’t anything more extreme than chiropterans. They stretch our definition of how speciation, reproduction, and metabolism all function. From what I’ve read about the process of drones, I think they may even bend the definitions of life and death themselves. And it is drones that I primarily wanted to ask you about.”

George was suddenly intrigued. He hadn’t expected Bolser to be interested in anything other than his origin theory. “You’ve read my paper. What else do you want to know?”

“Well, I’d been looking at the DNA you made available of Q2’s drones,” he reached for his tablet, and froze. “Oh crap.” His eyes widened in panic. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry. All my…all my data’s in the cloud, I didn’t know that, uh, that I couldn’t access it.”

“I can get the DNA mockups here.” George leaned forward and began sweeping his hands across his desk. Two sequence models appeared suspended over the desktop surface, and Marcus peered forward to the displays, his look of panic changed to one of amazement.

“My God, the resources you have in the private sector!”

“We’re somewhere halfway between a company and an NGO, actually. But yeah, it’s hard to find this kind of funding in academia.”

“Okay,” Marcus pointed at a portion of the model as he leaned in. “You see this here? This is all the inactive DNA, the ‘junk’ as it’s popularly called. We know it has various immune system properties in humans, but I noticed…” he paused. “Could you pull up the queens’ data that you have?”

George hesitated, wondering for a moment whether it was a good idea to have this much data on his console at once, but his curiosity over what Marcus’ point was won out over his caution. With a few more gestures brought up another three models.

“There’s this small section here,” Marcus continued, pointing to Saya’s genome strand, “that got copied into the junk of the two drones. It’s easy to miss, just a few pairs, but it’s a constant.”

George peered at the spot Marcus was pointing to. He was right – it was _very_ easy to miss. When he’d examined the changes in Riku’s DNA before and after his transformation, he’d barely looked at the junk DNA, only the chief encoders and the mitochondria.

“We know now that the pseudo-mitochondria is the force behind the complete cell transformation in workers, but even you admit that you don’t know why the transformation seems to be voluntary in the drones, and why their shapes are unique to each individual. Well, I think it has something to do with this slight alteration to junk DNA. I think their form is _based on_ their junk DNA. I just,” and here Bolser’s practiced speech seemed to finally wear out, leaving his social awkwardness exposed again, “I need, um, more data. From more drones, I mean.”

George gave a long sigh and leaned back in his chair. “The problem with anything about drones is that we don’t have much to go on. With the queens, we have three of them with extensive data and information, plus the somewhat outdated sources on two others from the first Joel Goldsmith’s records. But drones… we have a little on one, a little more on another, and if you look at the data,” he swept the genomes out of the way and pulled up a diagram he’d considered including in his paper before realizing it only showed ignorance rather than clarity. “Well, they don’t match. Q2D1 never showed any signs of needing blood, he was able to transform, he was stronger, faster, all across the board, than Q2D2. The only factors they seem to share are a lack of need for sleep and food and a compulsion to be around their queen. We managed to get a sample of D2’s DNA from before his transformation, which gave a little more knowledge than we had from D1, but even then, which one is the outlier? We can’t determine normal with two samples like this.”

“But you have more data than this!” Dr. Bolser exclaimed. When he saw George’s quizzical look, the scientist shrugged. “Look, in my field, you can’t be as, well, choosy about data. I won’t deny there’s a lot of, you know, guesswork. You make predictions you maybe can’t back up yet. I know that you, um, don’t _like_ the comparison, but, well, we’re in the same boat here. You have to maybe use less than ideal data.”

George started to see where this was going. “You mean Q3’s drones?”

“Exactly.”

“But we never studied any of them firsthand. All we have are anecdotes and observations, almost all of which were obtained during confrontations. That’s not anywhere near enough to make any real hypothesis from it.”

“Look, I can explain how I do this, just, um, let me know, how many did Q3 even have?”

George leaned back again and started counting in his head. “Well, the first was Amshel, Joel’s partner. She seemed to have made him her drone shortly before her escape. After she went into her first dormancy cycle, she woke up in 1915, I believe. From what Sa—er, Q2 told us, she turned someone in this time period named ‘Grigori.’ Q2 claims that was Rasputin, but…”

“Rasputin? Seriously?”

“Well, reports of his death _were_ always a little suspicious. Still, I’d wager she was mistaken. Grigori is a common Russian name, and Q3 was impersonating Anastasia at the time and may have cultivated a drone to play to the part of the tsar’s advisor. Whoever he was, he was killed in 1919. We do know for certain that she also changed a young French doctor named Solomon and a German musician named Karl. After her next dormancy, she woke up in nineteen forty…four? I think? Somewhere around there. Anyway, she had two new drones, one an American soldier named James and…okay, you won’t believe this, but we _do_ have documents to prove it. Do you know who Martin Borrmann was?”

“No idea.”

“Private secretary to Hitler.”

“…You’re joking.”

“Nope. I think Amshel may have been choosing her drones for her, picking people who would be advantageous to have on their side. Anyway, she went to sleep again, and woke up in the mid seventies. We have less information on her because Q2 was still dormant at that time, but we think it was around that time that she picked up her final drone, a man named Nathan Mahler, who had the theater connection that let Q3 eventually host her infamous concert in the Met.”

“So that’s…” now Dr. Bolser was counting. “Seven. Seven drones.”

“Right, but we don’t have any good observations of them.”

Bolser smiled and shook his head. “Did they all transform?”

“Yes.”

“Were they all unusually strong and fast?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t see—”

“Then Q2D2 was the outlier. You don’t need to, you know, run tests or to see their genes to know something that simple. Q2D2 was unusual. And then you have to start looking at other, you know, at _other_ differences to see what might cause it. And that’s where my theory comes in. I think it’s testosterone.”

George pulled back up the genome models. “Testosterone?”

Bolser suddenly reached forward and cleared the entire display area. “Stop looking at the models, okay? You don’t _have_ models, so you have to-to-to _think_ , get it? What _else_ was different? All of the drones, all of them, they were adults, right? A-a-and the _purpose_ of drones is to breed. They should be XY-typical, adults, breeding age, but Q2D2 was only thirteen.”

“Old enough to have fathered Q4 and 5.” George couldn’t keep the sourness out of his voice as he considered the circumstances of that fathering.

“Right, so _barely_ old enough, _barely_ enough testosterone. He was too young, so he wasn’t, I guess you could say, fully developed. He couldn’t transform, he wasn’t much stronger than an average human, he needed blood when injured.”

Bolser was getting very excited about this, and it was beginning to make George uncomfortable. “Look, I’ll admit it’s an idea, but even in exobiology, you only make unsupported hypotheses with the understanding that you’ll be able to test them sometime in the future. We don’t have that luxury.”

 “You don’t think they’ll make any new ones?”

George almost laughed. “Well, Kana’s made it perfectly clear she doesn’t want to…”

Too late he realized he’d used her real name, and unfortunately Dr. Bolser was clever enough to make the connection. “Kana? You mean… the girl from before…”

George shrugged. “She really doesn’t want me using her real name when I’m talking shop about her, so let’s go back to saying Q5.”

Bolser’s eyes looked like they were about to leap out of his head. “That…that was Q5?!”

“You don’t have to be so shocked. All the queens are here right now. I mean, their aunt just woke up, they’re waiting to meet her.”

The other man shook his head. “Well, maybe this is all normal for you, b-but for me it’s as if I, like, actually _met_ one of the aliens I’ve projected. She seemed, I dunno, normal.”

“She is, mostly. They both are.”

“Are you…are you _friends_?”

George shifted uncomfortably. “My family came here to Okinawa when I was in kindergarten and we moved to the states when I entered high school, but for about ten years, yes, we basically grew up together.”

“God. That must’ve been… unusual.”

A memory of Kanade licking blood off his arm filled his mind momentarily. “Oh yeah.”

“So if you’ve worked with them this long… you have access to them?”

“‘Access’ is a relative term. Can I take measurements? Sure. Can I interview them? Obviously. Do I get fluid samples? Nobody does, except for the person who’s been the queens’ doctor for thirty years.”

“Your mother?”

“Exactly.”

Bolser looked slightly disappointed at that news, and George couldn’t entirely blame him. He’d had to struggle through the red tape of getting access to the queens. It was only the patents that Red Shield had on their DNA and their inherent uncloneability that made the organization comfortable with having any of their research be public at all.

“Well, all right, so you’re saying they don’t, I guess, want to make any more drones, okay, I guess I can understand that. I mean, it triggers the whole, um, hibernation cycle, why would you want to go through that, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“But you _do_ have D1? Q2’s first drone?”

“Yes. He’s a bit, er, preoccupied with her right now, but he’s been very cooperative with me in my research, and if you’re cleared here I could probably convince him to listen to you. I’ll admit the testosterone idea makes sense, it’s probably worth looking into. But if you _do_ get to talk to him…”

“Yes, what?”

“Well, the twins both prefer that you use their designations if you’re talking about just their genetics, but he won’t answer to D1. He calls himself Hagi.”

 

***

 

Saya and Hagi were walking in one of the grass enclosures wrapped around by the hallways and observation chambers of the RSRA’s research wing. She knew they were being observed – she could feel their eyes boring into them as they walked along side-by-side, could – or thought she could – hear their heartbeats and breathing.

But it was still pleasant to be out of doors after a long time in bed. More than two weeks had passed since she’d woken up, according to what Julia had told her. Saya had become very fond of the lady scientist. Most of her memories of her were positive, beginning with a knowledge that Julia had betrayed very important people to help her. Amidst the wave of strangers analyzing her, Julia seemed to care.

“She does.” Hagi had told her. “She’s a friend.”

Was Hagi a friend? No, he was something else, something important, but it was tied to memories that were more confusing and unsettling than the machines and faces surrounding her.

“I have dreams about monsters,” she said, once they were near the middle of the lawn, far enough away that she felt certain they couldn't be overheard. She was trying to practice her English with him, which was coming haltingly, mixed with French. “Whenever I sleep. Creatures that begin as men but change. They have… _les griffes_ , and wings like _chauve-souris_.” Saya looked up at Hagi. “I know they are more than just _cauchemars_ , they are memories.”

Hagi didn’t answer, but his eyes looked concerned.

“And…I remember that you change too.”

He turned his head away from hers. She reached out to touch his right hand, which he kept wrapped in heavy bandages, which gave the impressions of it being much too large for a normal man.

“May I see it?”

He hesitated, but Saya refused to remove her hand from his.

“I _need_ to see it, Hagi. I need… clarity. I hate living in this _brouillard_ , this confusion, where I don’t know who I am and _what_ I am and who _you_ are.” She took a deep breath. “Whatever is underneath doesn’t change how much you have taken care of me, doesn’t change that you are a good man.”

He lifted her hand off his, and began to unwrap the bandages. Saya had an idea of what to expect but she still let out a gasp at seeing the reality. His entire right hand was a black claw, with long fingers and razor-sharp nails, knotted with tendons that hinted at a hideous strength. It was inhuman, very much like the beings from her nightly terrors.

The gasp, though, came more from the emergence of a memory, of a blazing garden and dying family, of Hagi transforming in front of her from the handsome man she’d always known into something else, a demon, bat-winged, long-armed, a vulpine face that he changed back from as soon as he saw her screaming. A demon that, she recalled all of a sudden, _she had_ _somehow made._

“It never healed,” Hagi said softly, by way of explanation, which didn’t explain anything. She couldn’t remember his arm being injured, could barely remember anything about _him_. Nothing except his importance.

“So…the monsters are real, then?”

He nodded.

“And you are one of them…and so am I.” When he opened his mouth to protest, she shook her head. “I remember drinking your blood when I woke up. I…sometimes think about drinking it now. I don’t know what that means, but even right now I know enough that it isn’t…normal.”

“They have a saying now. Normal is overrated.”

Saya laughed, and traced a line down the palm of his malformed hand. “It doesn’t scare me. Is that strange?”

Hagi simply smiled.

“But that’s why all these _scientifiques_ are studying me, right? Because I’m not normal, I’m different somehow, because of all these monsters—”

“The other monsters are gone now. Thanks to you.”

She frowned. “I don’t remember that, yet. I want to. Even though…even though I think there are things I may not really _want_ to remember. But I’d rather face them than live hiding, running. I feel as if I’ve been running a very, very long time, and I’m tired, and I want to stop.”

Hagi nodded, and began to rewrap his hand. “There are people who might help.”

“ _Qui_?”

“Well. You have a family.”


End file.
